Author: Ariel

Review of “Eric Foner's Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877”

One of the problems that I have with writing short reviews for very long, detailed books like this is that I must avoid the complexities of the content presented. In a few words I could say that Reconstruction: American’s Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877 by Eric Foner describes the post-Emancipation Proclamation world of the Southern United States and how it went through various stages of Reconstruction, wherein Northern rule held varying degrees of control over the South, to Redemption wherein the previous humanitarianism disappeared and Southern rights reasserted their rule via “state’s rights.” To summarize over 600 pages into this sentence is certainly not fair to the wealth of the research that Eric Foner has done nor accurately describes the vicissitudes of the period. But this is – in a few words – what the book is about. Rather than doing so, for this book I’ll post links to some other reviews that go into extensive detail and also post the essay questions that my students could pick from to answer below as the latter, I believe, shows what the book deals with and the former is available for those that would like a more expository understanding of the material the book contains.

Here is an appraisal and analysis of the book from Reviews in American History: http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/omalley/gilded/perman.pdf

And here is a review from the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/22/books/a-moment-of-terrifying-promise.html?pagewanted=all

Essay Questions

Chapter 1

The World the War Made

  1. Justify historians Charles and Mary Beard claim that the Emancipation of American slaves was more than just the end of a particular form of a system of labor.
  2. Examine W. E. B. Du Bois’s claim that it was the blacks that led the drive towards Emancipation.
  3. Compare and contrast the economic effects of the war on the North and the South.
  4. Explain how the Civil War helped consolidate the American state.
  5. Evaluate why Northern military policies would vacillate between progressive and regressive.
  6. Describe the ways that the Civil War was the mid-wife of the revolution.
  7. Discuss some of the black institutional responses to emancipation.
  8. Compare and contrast free labor ideology with slavery and assess the validity of the former’s claims
  9. Describe the role of class in the South’s internal civil war.

 

Chapter 2

Rehearsals for Reconstruction

 

  1. Describe the rationale for the10 Percent Plan described in Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction.
  2. Discuss how the actions of the new Reconstruction governments helped to undermine the perceived legitimacy of their rule.
  3. Compare and contrast the arguments for and against confiscation.
  4. Identify some of the manners in the Banks system and other laws enforced the interests of Southern property owners.
  5. Examine the various roles and responsibilities of the Freedman’s Bureau.
  6. Explain what made the small Sea Islands experiment so worthy of national attention.
  7. Evaluate with examples the army’s role in the transformation to labor policy formation in the occupied south.
  8. Distinguish the causes for black rural and city delegates disagreements on policy formation.
  9. Analyze reasons for the North’s tenuous commitment to emancipation.

 

Chapter 3

The Meaning of Freedom

  1. Describe some of the manners in which the freed blacks exercised their new freedom.
  2. Contrast black family and social life before and after Emancipation.
  3. Explain the changes that occurred in Black-attended churches following Emancipation.
  4. Identify the reasons for the rise in civil-aid societies.
  5. Examine how land ownership related to the freedman’s desires for economic independence.
  6. Distinguish several manners in which freedman used the new labor conditions to obtain better wages and working conditions.
  7. Compare and contrast the dynamics of farming for self-sufficiency with farming for the market.
  8. To what extent did black political organizations change between 1864 and 1866?
  9. Contrast the waning interest with conventions with the social ferment of the Southern countryside.

Chapter 4

Ambiguities of Free Labor

  1. Describe in detail the economic conditions of the South.
  2. Explain the rationale for planters placing personal life provisions within contracts.
  3. Analyze the conflicts between new northern planters and southern blacks.
  4. Identify the methods by which southern planters and the military now regulated the labor of free blacks.
  5. Discuss the role of the market from the vantage point of freedman, plantation owners and the government.
  6. To what extent did paternalism motivate institutional responses to the conditions in the South.
  7. Identify the limits to the Freedman Bureau’s efficacy.
  8. Examine the role of coercion in the creation of contracts.
  9. To what extent did sharecropping emerge from the post-war economic exigencies.

Chapter 6

The Making of Radical Reconstruction

  1. To what extent do you agree with Thaddeus Stevens claim that the Congress in session in 1866 was “making a [new] nation” and that “technical scruples” ought not to be allowed to prevent them from their statecraft?
  2. Describe in detail the changes sought by the Radical Republicans and their motivations for them.
  3. Compare and contrast the views of Moderate and Radical Republicans
  4. Evaluate the Civil Rights Bill.
  5. Explain the relationship of black and women’s suffrage.
  6. Justify the claims of a number of modern historians that Andrew Johnson was the worst president.
  7. Examine why Eric Foner states that the Reconstruction Act passed by the 39th session of Congress was a “incongruous mixture of idealism and political expediency”.
  8. Define “states rights” and describe how it played a contentious role in the Congressional debates.
  9. Kanye West recently tweeted: “What is your definition of true freedom? There is no true freedom without economic freedom.” Analyze how this relates to the issues surrounding Reconstruction.

Chapter 8

Reconstruction: Political and Economic

  1. Define and describe the four areas Foner cites which limited the Republicans efforts to reshape southern society and establish their legitimacy.
  2. Compare and contrast the qualities of the government positions obtained by blacks and whites.
  3. Analyze the role of graft & corruption amongst the political parties and races between 1868 and 1872.
  4. Explain how new economic legislation provided more power to blacks.
  5. Describe the social and economic effects of blacks entering into the market economy.
  6. Identify the causes that lead to two plantation regions underdevelopment.
  7. To what extent did state-sponsored economic development contribute to financial crisis?
  8. Examine the goals and outcomes of state-sponsored economic development.
  9. Describe the reasons for the rise of the landlord-merchant class.

 

Chapter 10

The Reconstruction of the North

  1. Describe the effects the railroads had on the geography and economy of the North and West.
  2. Compare and contrast the relationship between business politics in the frontier areas with that of freedman in the South.
  3. Identify the reasons for the creation of unprecedented income inequality in the North.
  4. Explain the challenges that technological progress made to the free labor ideology once lauded by the Northern elite.
  5. Discuss the differences between black and white experiences of labor.
  6. Distinguish what is meant by the term “professionally managed politics”.
  7. To what extend and by whom was economic legislation considered “dangerous”.
  8. Identify the reasons why Reconstruction was losing its strength as a political force.
  9. Compare and contrast perspectives on government reform.

 

 

**********

Also worth checking out is this interview with Eric Foner:

http://nostalgiatrap.libsyn.com/nostalgia-trap-episode-41-eric-foner

 

 

 

 

Review of “Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression”

Several years ago I’d heard on NPR an insightful interview of Robin D. G. Kelley, the author of Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression. My interest in the work piqued, the book sat with the myriad others on my Amazon Wish List until I started creating a Long Civil Rights course track for the IB History classes I’m teaching and from my experience in the classroom I highly recommend it as a companion book/follow up reading to Reconstruction.

Kelley opens by describing the feudal milieu that Communist Party activists sought to change through the Share Croppers Union. Housing settlements are widely disbursed and are not owned by the farmers that occupy them; there are no social centers besides churches that have their preachers vetted by plantation owners; the caloric options from company provision outlets was poor and yet high-priced. Pay rates were also so poor that farmers relied upon home gardens and “odd jobs” to get by. During periods when they were not harvesting or planting, because their housing wasn’t owned, they had to rely upon company welfare – which was often required to be paid back – or government welfare that is cut as soon as planters needs workers. Any attempts at organizing against such living conditions would often mean forced eviction and beatings.

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If living in this sort of economic deprivation wasn’t discouraging enough, there is then the environment of virulent racism that workers and organizers had to live in. The attempt by black share croppers to demand a more just price for their work based upon the actual commodity prices could lead to murder predicated on the defense of Southern Femininity as it was the planter’s wives that often kept the books for the business. Kelley’s narrative abounds with poor black farmers or political organizers that are kidnapped, beaten, shot or hanged by police. The police also give these people over to vigilante squads and fail to prosecute white people for crimes against blacks.

The Communist Party and it’s associate organization the International Labor Defense rouse sentiments and are able to mobilize against such a socially unequal legal order which made no real effort to prosecute lynchings. This activity was all the more heroic as it accomplished with pushback both from white supremacist organizations such as the KKK as well as the “respectable” NAACP. Representing the aspirations of the burgeoning black middle class that saw many poor blacks denial of enfranchisement as just and the confrontational street-politics of the CPUSA as antagonistic to the white allies they hoped to impress, the NAACP red-baited and sought to undermine the organization’s philosophy while the latter group beat and assassinated it’s members. Based upon their defense of the Scottsboro Boys and their role in winning some strikes for better wages and working conditions, however, they managed to seed themselves in the hearts of many Alabamians before and after the Popular Front Period.

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The radical economic changes brought about by New Deal Policies changes everything. Government subsidies are granted to the owners of large agricultural holdings to industrially mechanize. While there was a small amount of resettlement funds itemized allotted to tenant farmers leaving the plantation, they often did not receive it. This army of unemployed mostly made their way into the mining industry next. There they faced racist, dual unions, similar housing arrangements as before and, following the passage of more repressive legislation, a host of pretexts for police to prevent their freedom of speech and organization. Those that were not able to obtain employment, or those that were fired from the mines, had to deal with a patronizing and intrusive system of welfare distribution.

A slew of Communist party organizers and their sympathizers are assassinated while those that live are socially ostracized by the black middle class and white liberals. Kelley breaks down a number of the considerations of the Popular Front and contextualizes the shift to embedding in the CIO as it rises to prominence and additionally gives a number of biographical sketches that gives compelling background to the CPUSA membership. By bringing in their private lives in addition to the struggles faced as a result of political activity that did not always follow CP directives, Kelley humanizes a group that we learn is more maligned because it represented an alternate ideology of modernism and the eradication of racial privilege rather than it’s slavishness as a fifth column for an “evil” foreign power.

This type of first hand account of developing activity on the ground that is constantly adapting to deal with new and often profound exigencies is quite simply an excellent case-study based way for a modern organizer to understand how to obtain true political allegiances and traction within a community by responding to and anticipating it’s needs. The variety of practical considerations makes it an excellent resource for those interested in political organizing. hammerandhoe

Interview with Adam Sheetz

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I’ve been acquainted with South Florida based artist Adam Sheetz for almost a decade now. I met him first at FAU, watching him perform in an anti-war folk duo he lead. After being taken in by the combination of high talent and humility I was further impressed as we spoke on current political issues. Since then I’ve seen his talents contribute to other worthy musical endeavors in numerous local spaces and also seen his graphic art work at a number of venues. While a fan from the beginning, I’ve also noticed that at each new encounter with his work that his artistry has improved – something noticed not just by me but also by those that voted for him and got him the award of New Times Best Visual Artist of 2015.

I met with Adam Sheetz at his house in West Palm Beach. After he showed me around his house filled with unique, carnivalesque art and guitars I chatted with his wife Lindsey for a bit we made our way to his studio. After I looked over the canvases that were in the room and perused some of the books in his library, many of which I also had in mine, we had a shot of whiskey in homage to our shared appreciation of Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson then cracked open beers and started talking about a number of things. As the interview was three hours and forty-five minutes, or 38 pages transcribed, it had been edited for readability and concision. Enjoy!

*

Ariel: So what are you setting up on the easel right now?

Adam: I thought of a Trump piece last night. I’m going to do Trump now in a big diaper crashing through D.C.

Ariel: One of the things that I’ve noticed in the content of you work is a negation of the dominant tropes and narrative of American society – be they politicians, police or religious figures. A negation of that negation, as it were.

Adam: Well I try and leap for the most exaggerated, most grotesque forms of what is actually out there. I really want to be objective for this show. I don’t really want to be supporting any particular candidate. I just want to put the shit out there. I’m not in the business to make people look pretty, I’m in the business to expose people for what they are. If I can elevate the negative to a level that is so farfetched from what it actually is, but within that there are still tenants of a deeper truth, well than that is exactly the kind of attention that they deserve and need. I’m not saying exaggeration is the only way to arrive at a real truth, if you are just telling it like it is, few people are going to pay attention. If you throw in some tits or a politician jacking off or something, people are more likely to look. I mean, why shouldn’t artists use the same methods of big business advertising and culture. Sex sells.

Ariel: That’s precisely why my second book has so much sex in it.

Adam: There you go.

Ariel: So I really like your Animal Farm series. I’m curious to see what thoughts you have that words and qualities associated with being an animal, apart from being a tiger in bed and or hung like an elephant, are typically negative. Do you think that this type of objectification influences the way that people treat the environment?

Adam: I actually wasn’t even going for it in that sense, but I like the connection.

Ariel: You can use that if you like.

Adam: [Laughs] Yeah, I will. With that piece, you know one thing that I have been struggling with in my art, especially taking as a subject something so explicitly that is thematically socio-political, you know the easy way out would be to do each politician as they are. You know do their portrait in some way, but you know that’s only going to last for 2-4 years before it is irrelevant. But the problems are always the same.

Ariel: That’s a really good formulation.

Adam: So my struggle is you know, how do I attack these people by attacking the problems that they are creating? I’ve found very often that the best way to do that is through animals. There are so many parallels to different personality types in the animal world. Not just that, but the symbolism that animals hold in the Bible. I feel that I do a better service to the issues by not putting the people in there. I think if you put people and faces that are recognisable, it gives them more credit than they deserve. It then makes the piece about them, and I think if you make it about them you ultimately miss the bigger structural issues at hand. It makes my art more universal.

I don’t want to be thought of as a cartoonist. I want my low-brow shit to be infiltrating the high-brow world. I want to just flip it on its ass. I think animals are just the best way to represent people at the end of the day [laughs]. With that series, you know each animal represents a different aspect of society

Ariel: Walk me through it?

Adam: Sure. Rather than an eagle, my take on the national bird is the vultures – that’s why it’s displayed with the flag in the background. It’s the first piece in the series and it’s meant to orient people so they know the theme is America politics. Then there’s the saturated pink and green pig. The green background because money and the pig is the businessman. Then there’s the yellow cowardly sheep, which is basically the general population being shepherded around. Then there is the peacock, which is your glitz and glam reality TV culture. The peacock and the sheep go hand in hand because you get to the point of being a peacock and only concern yourself with exterior appearance and keeping up with the Joneses and the status quo. I think ultimately it evolves you to being rolled in with the sheep.

Ariel: Interesting. I took it to represent bourgeois intellectuals.

PH44art800Adam: The peacock?

Ariel: Yeah.

Adam: That wasn’t my intention. The peacock is the animal representing one of the seven deadly sins, so that was my thought behind it. But I always enjoy hearing what people take away from it, especially if it is not what I intended because now I could have a whole new narrative. Tell me more what you mean.

Ariel: So for me it’s the smile that makes it what I said. Peacocks represent the regal, the rich, but they are not it. To mix bird metaphors here, they parrot the rhetorical positions of “jobs creators”, and get well kept for it, like birds in a menagerie. I don’t know, maybe it’s just something about that smile that makes me think of William Buckley.

Adam: The thing I love about art is when I do a piece, by the time I am done the narrative has changed and I find things that I draw that I wouldn’t call forced symbolism but triggers “that means that” even though at the time it wasn’t what I intended. See

Ariel: Counter to what we have been talking about, I have a question about The Death of Marat. This piece, is there at particular face that was supposed to be on there?a548ee_3773a08a57914005ad0d1ab8eba68102.jpg

Adam: No. There was no particular face. I was reinterpreting the well know piece by David. That is actually one of my favorite pieces of David’s. I wrote one of my finals in college on him, basically paralleling him to Fox News and other major news networks because at the end of the day they only report what they are paid to report. If whoever owns the company, like Murdoch, doesn’t like something they are not going to report on it. David was a patron of whoever was in power at the time. Whatever direction the revolution was going and whoever paid him the most, that was who he painted for. So I kind of equated him to a news network of that time. The French revolutionary epoch is so fascinating. It paved the way for so many things, politically, socially and artistically. I’m glad you asked about that piece.

Ariel: Well, I wanted to bring it up as even though your style has changed since then I see within it, almost all of your work really, the same radical, emancipatory spirit that inspired the art of that period.

Adam: Thank you! I’m getting goosebumps. That is a very kind compliment.

Ariel: Yeah, it’s why I like you work so much – it speaks to my head and to my gut.

Adam: Good! I want my work to cause a visceral reaction like that. I want people to walk out of my show feeling unsettled. I don’t claim to have all the solutions to addressing the social grotesqueries that have become banal and commonplace and thus accepted. I want my art to put a question mark in my audience’s head that encourages them to seek some sort of answer. I don’t expect that my work will change the world, but god damn it if it isn’t my hope.

Ariel: Well, if it’s any consolation I can’t stand most of the art that I consume at galleries or museums and yet yours speaks to me.

Adam: Thank you. I mean yeah, as it is conceived today, I am a shitty contemporary artist because I don’t pay attention to what is happening in the world. I mean it’s the commercialised world in this day and age. For the most part, that or you’re a “crafter”. You know? For as pompous as I sounded saying that, I don’t mean to. I’m probably one of the most humble guys. You know?

Ariel: Yeah, I mean, I’ve known you for a long time and you definitely are.

Ariel: Yeah, I get it. I’ve been trying to get into contemporary writers. I mean, it’s hard. They write about bullshit I don’t care about. I mean you can only read so many “troubled home” stories before it’s like… okay. I get it. You had a shitty home life. Now find something other to talk about that’s bigger than you.

Adam: Exactly! All art is really just regurgitation at this point. A lot of what I have seen in contemporary art basically just tries to match the formula of what sold last year. There are handfuls of artists that are doing something real, though fuck if I know who they are. I know they are out there, they have to be, I’m also not going to wade through a bunch of mire just to fin them. I mean, that’s part of the reason I try not to pay attention to “what’s hot”. I don’t want to be inadvertently influenced by anything like that, for better or worse. If I want to be influenced I go back to my heroes like Goya, Basquiat, Deschamps and of course Stedman and Picasso. And speaking of Picasso, actually, his work has a style I’ve been trying to figure out lately how to do. I’ve been trying to do a 2D painting of 3D, by mixing and matching the planes. I always thought that was such an interesting concept – but I want to take it a step further, like paint something illustrating the detritus of our current socio-political climate. You know, where there’s not just one problem but all these different angles. I think a cubist representation of that would be a very honest.

Ariel: But what would that look like? I mean, the way you describe it makes me think of Balzac’s the Unknown Masterpiece, which ends with a brief description of this painting that’s clearly aligned with the Zeitgeist and yet nearly indescribable as a language has yet to come together to structure it’s meaning.

Adam: Honestly, I have no idea yet. I couldn’t even say what the subject would be at the moment but I’ll get there. I use liberty a lot as my subject. So just thinking off the top of my head I imagine it might relate to her. But if I were to do a cubist piece I think it would be, maybe something along the lines of the three bathers painting. Something like I did with the “Now and Then” series with Liberty, Justice and Nature. I would probably do those three women in a cubist style and try and fit as many planes of conflict as I could in there. That may be my project for next year, though I’m not sure.

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Ariel: I like the concept and am glad you brought up your “Now and Then” series depicting Nature, Justice and Liberty. I thought was great visually, but I’m honestly a bit wary of the politics of nostalgia. Could you speak on your intentions with it, as the implies something that, say, “Ideal and Actual” does not.

Adam: It never existed fully, no, though at the same time you could say that the pre-Colombian people’s here had something closer. I mean, if you look at all of the social injustices from the start of our country, we’ve never been a fully equal society and a fully just society. With the exception of nature, I don’t think there was ever a truly ideal “Then” for any of the subjects that was fully representative of what we all would love them to be.

As far as liberty goes, I’d also say that was significantly more prevalent prior to the kind of techno-surveillance culture we have not. Not for everybody, slavery, obviously, but I feel that liberty has taken a turn for the worse and I guess that was really the turning point between the then and now.

Ariel: So I’m glad to hear that you feel the “Then” never existed, and is just a rhetorical trope as I was going to get on your case about that. After all, it’s a variant of Donald’s “Make America Great Again”.

Adam: [Laughs] Glad you were ready to call me out. I don’t make art for people to tell me it’s good. I expect to be challenged. I’m actually glad you brought that up because you’re absolutely right and I agree with you 100%. But for the sake of the piece it’s the starting point of a narrative. One that starts out as a fairy tale – this utopia that never existed – and we arrive at this gross truth of what it actually is. I think with this view the “then” is exists as hope as something that we can return to, rather something that we can arrive at for the first time.

Ariel: I like that. It evokes the idea of a return to paradise almost, even thought the then is something that we would be arriving at for the first time. Which all makes me think of a desire armed to return there. Considering that Lake Worth is the home of the Earth First  Journal and your works contains a number of radical political themes I was wondering if there has been any sort of exchange between you and them.

Adam: Actually, yes. Earth First has contacted me a few times. Unfortunately we have never really lined up on some of the stuff I have versus what they needed. That’s actually a good reminder for me to reach back out them because now I have a few pieces that might be interesting for them. I love Earth First. I love everything they are doing. Somebody needs to do it.

You know and early on at FAU, like ’07-08, right before I met Cecil and you, I played in an anti-war folk band. I had a percussionist and me on acoustic guitar. I used to play at protests against the Iraq war. I was a member of A.N.S.W.R. Act Now to Stop War and End Racism. I went to Washington DC with them in September when Petraeus was coming out with his new budget report and asking for more money for Iraq. There was big protests going on – not on the news, of course – and we took a van to D.C. We marched to the capital, some friends got arrested. One of the organizers was one of the first men on the ground. His name was Mike and he had a video which went viral. Although there is not much time for it now. I still feel like I am doing my part with painting, because somebody has to.

[We break to have a cigarette outside]

Ariel: Now that I see it in your garage, in front of me, one of the questions I had for you was for you to walk me through The Persistence of Reality. The picture on your website is small, but it is such a huge piece.

Persistance of Reality

Adam: It is so far my best attempt at paying homage to Hieronymus Bosch.  This piece basically maps the terrain a barren kind of cultural landscape. The only thing that looks lush and fertile is the facade. This quest for visibility and 15 minutes of fame – reality TV culture – I think is dragging us through the mud as a culture.

So you have here these people lining up to go down to watch framed in a manner that alludes to Bosch’s work, “The Cure of Folly”. Back in the day people used to think that people who did bad things had something in their brain and called the Folly Stone. Because of this belief they, logicially, originated the practice of lobotomies originated. They would take out a piece of the brain thinking that would cure them of evil, which is why there are medieval tools in the picture. Up here you have the US Capital Building, the Whitehouse and the flames with this big monster. You have the Hollywood spotlights going. Nobody is paying attention. These are two of my favorite figures that I have come up with. You basically notice that the eyeball around it looks a lot like a vagina. The tear duct is like a clit. So I kind of flipped around, stuck an eyeball in there and created this kind of Uncle Sam foyer figures. You know, kind of representative of the NSA.

Adam: The lush fertile area is just a backdrop. The stiletto wearing vultures. It’s the transformation of what was once the sacred feminine, into this profane “women are bitches and whores”. It’s just a fuckfest down here.

Ariel: Considering that we’ve been talking about animal’s relationship to your work, I like the animal masks that you have them wearing.

Adam: You could chalk it up to the laziness of not wanting to paint a bunch of faces.

[laughter]

Ariel: Did you go to school for art? Or are you self-taught?

Adam: A little bit of both. I went to school for studio arts/graphic design but I still haven’t technically graduated FAU. I learned a lot, but basically I kept going to get access to materials. There’s a number of professors there who have helped shape the seriousness with which I do my work. Of all my art training, what I took the most from was my art history classes, more than the practical application and the studio classes. The studio classes were a chance for me to exercise what I had already been doing, but with new tools.

Ariel: So how do you think your art has changed over time?

Adam: One of the things that I struggled with earlier on in my career was arriving at my own style that was separate from my influences. That was the struggle. I think where I am now compared to where I was 10 years ago and it’s a whole different world. To go deeper, there was a point where I had to break down what I was doing and rebuild it. This is no small task, you know, a whole new world had to be built upon the old. I adhere to that concept in a lot of aspects in life. I think that it’s the most productive way to go about anything at the end of the day – something’s not working, you tear it down and build upon it. Now, for me to pick up the pen and the brush and have it be fulfilling, I really have to be saying something. If I’m not saying anything, it’s a waste of my time… unless I’m getting paid [laughs]. I’ve got a little one to feed. I’m not going to be the one to paint a still-life with a bowl of fruit in it.

Ariel: Or like just a nude.

Adam: Right. I mean it’s not saying anything.

Ariel: Right?! I mean love women. I will ogle and appreciate and blah, blah, blah. But when it comes to my taste in art, however, I need to have some kind of more redeeming, edifying element. I want my naked women to be leading the people.

Adam: Exactly, like Lady Liberty Leading the People. That’s one of my favorites. I actually got to see that one in person at the Louvre.

Ariel: Oh. So on the about you section on your website, you say that you frame your work as portraits of beauty by means of crude exaggeration. Do you think that the anti-septic nature of current socio-political discourse is detrimental.

Adam: Yeah, everything today has got to be so prim and proper and clean and the choice of what people emphasize as being important is just so askew. A lot of times nobody can tell it like it is because so many people have become over-sensitive cry-babies. I mean we live in a culture where you get a trophy just for fucking showing up. That’s what it’s become.

I don’t know when it happened, but I think my generation was when that shift happened. I’m 27 and I can remember my senior class was the first class ever at Cardinal Newman where no one that graduated received senior superlatives in the yearbooks. Too many mothers complained that their son or daughter wasn’t picked for something, so they stopped doing it. I don’t know why this generation has stopped knowing what it was to earn something. I also went to a private Catholic school so a lot of the children were privileged too.

Ariel: I knew a few girls there from when I was in high school, so I know what you mean.

Adam: Haha, yeah… So I was the bottom bracket of the kids at that school. Which I enjoyed because you know, I could be my own person. But I think that the societal discourse of giving trophies just for showing up-

Ariel: We are going to talk about some adult things, “trigger warning”.

Adam: Yeah, and I don’t see how sugar-coating everything and being so politically correct that there is not an ounce of truth in what you are saying, none of that s anything that can help bring us forward. Nobody wants to hear the truth, nobody wants to hear the bad stuff. I’m not saying that foul language etc should be a part… that’s not what we are talking about. Being PC all the time doesn’t get us anywhere though. You can’t have a positive and a positive and expect a reaction at the end of the day. If you break it down to physics.

Ariel: Well I mean, I think at least from the developmental sense. Everybody fails at some point.

Adam: You have to fail and you need to learn how to deal with it. It’s a given that I want the best for my son, that I want him to succeed. But I don’t want him to succeed without failing first on his own. I don’t want him to be destitute, living in a gutter. Failure is a part of life, it is how you grow. Sometimes you run into those walls in your life where you just have to make a decision and hope it pans out. Hopefully you come out smelling like a rose. It’s a practice of to keeping your wits about you, you know?

Relating this to my art, I think about when I stopped drawing with a pencil and started drawing with a pen. I was forced not to throw the piece away, and make something out of the mistake. That’s been something that I live my life by. I think everybody is expecting to go through life with their own personal filter when what they really need is to grow a thicker skin. Nothing is the end of the world.

Ariel: Except global climactic change.

Adam: This is true [laughs]. But even that, I think the anti-septic nature with which that political message is delivered may be doing a social disservice. Treat the public like they can handle how many billions invested in housing and infrastructure will be lost due to catastrophe and maybe something more substantive can be done about it. Instead of the honesty we have fucking Rick Scott preventing state workers from even using the phrase “climate change”. What a sad joke! It’s reasons like that which is why you can’t have an honest debate. It’s just arguing feelings.

Ariel: Yeah, totally! Like I was saying outside, I’m increasingly tired of trying to have real discussions with people online. I don’t talk about things I don’t know about but nobody else seems to think that this matters. They want what that guy [I point to the illustrations of Donald Trump] gives them, they want feelings rather than a complex, nuanced historically based perspective.

Adam: Or they want a sound board where they can bounce their shit off and hear themselves talk, or hear it regurgitated back to them in an agreeable manner. It’s all bullshit and just adds to the veil that is clouding our perception of what reality is. Not everybody is going to get along. That’s just a fucking fact. Find out your differences. Agree to disagree and if it don’t really matter then move the fuck on. Don’t get so butt-hurt if shit doesn’t go your way. If shit doesn’t go your way, maybe you should figure out a way to make it so that shit does go your way. Not in a negative sense though.

Ariel: You frame it in a way that I am wholly in accord with. One some of these important issues lets relate to each other on the actions that need be taken together as a community and through that we’ll heal some of our own issues.

Adam: Exactly.

Ariel: I love how you are all about doing something creatively, that I do as well in my writing, which is openly assimilating forms and styles from other places. A couple of other artists I know are so caught up in trying to be completely original that I think it hinders their ability to compose something great.

Adam: You can’t be original now. We’re just reshaping the past in a way so that the present can understand it. If I was so focused on creating something new, I would be wasting so much energy that I would end up with nothing. What I am creating is original enough, but it’s also an amalgamation of many things past – as all art is. History isn’t some thing, it’s what is happening now. And there are always smart, talented people who have said and done better than we can currently dream of creating.

Ariel: Heroes.

Adam: Exactly, and my heroes have always been those people who said it better. So I think by thinking that you can do it better in your own way is awfully arrogant.

Ariel: And neurotic.

Adam: Yeah. That’s the thing as well, seeking that kind of false comforting thought means that there is no drive to better oneself. Why try any harder in a format that other people have already mastered? Because there is the easy way and the hard way and it’s only in the latter time you really learn who you are.

If I can be vulnerable right now, that is one of the reasons I try to be so serious about the outside things that I tap into for my work. Whether that is historical subjects or different artists. I research because I enjoy and love learning and research. I write different notes and ideas down. I have a little pad that I sketch the ideas and inspirations for my bigger pieces. It’s a juvenile approach.

Kind of like throwing a bunch of shit against the wall and seeing what sticks. It often starts when I am trying to fall asleep. In order to do that I try to use ideating sleep rituals, it helps create a pattern of creative thought. Hopefully I remember it when I wake up. Some I do, some I don’t. I feel like the ones I don’t remember weren’t meant to be created. And anyway I don’t have the time to do every idea. The ones I do remember end up being fairly successful and what I want them to be. So I basically start with a general idea that begins with me trying to fall asleep and then when Thursday-Friday comes around I get the opportunity to put pen to paper. For pieces there is a lot of research involved whether it is researching history or artists or different composition styles, or researching different design clips that I can use. More often than not it is body parts or mechanical things. I’ll print them out and see what kinds of shapes I can make and how it can work. Sometimes I scrap it, but a lot of times I’ll just lay the stuff out, stick it on the paper and force it to dictate the piece to me, based on what sticks out to me at the time. It’s a push and pull. A lot of times, what I find out during the process will tell me something different to what I started with and I’ll end up meeting in the middle. Then all of the vibrancy, perversity, saturation – everything in my work – has to speak to something. Nothing is arbitrary. If it’s a line somewhere, it’s for a reason.

The way I see it’s like, good art is a psychic weapon that attacks things. This is my spell casting book.

Ariel: Then you must be like Hermoine, I see that you’re constantly making new works and it’s all so great. You are much more disciplined than I am as well. It looks great though.

Adam: I try to maintain discipline. Gonzo style. With everything around the house, being a new dad, I put in at least 10-15 hours a week on my own work. It’s a habit. Heh. The things around the house I need to write down, keep a schedule for work. Not for my own stuff though, I don’t want it to feel like work but second nature. It took discipline to get to this point, but I knew if it didn’t I wouldn’t get to this point. If I have a goal, I will work non-stop. If I don’t have some big project at the end of the line, it’s harder. So thankfully, I’ve got this show coming up. It will definitely be something they have never seen before.

Did I tell you one of my marketing tactics I’m going to do is campaign signs and the name of the show is going to be called “Nobody is safe” and it’s going to be put all throughout Cleveland. Super bright posters. Red, white and blue. It’s where we are right now.

Ariel: After this series, do you have anything you were thinking about next.

Adam: I was thinking of doing a show out west in California next summer. The Dead Kennedy’s are a huge influence on me and what I say and do in my work. They are the first band that I feel has the same velocity and crassness but still poignant at the same time. I feel like it is what a want to achieve with my work. A juvenile yet sensitive rejection of authority.

So my idea of a follow up show would be doing a series on Dead Kennedy’s and hopefully getting Jello, if not the whole band involved somehow.

Ariel: Who knows, maybe he’ll end up reading this and be as taken in with your art as I have been so he’ll reach out to you.

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If you’re in the area, make sure to check out Adam’s upcoming showing, information below.

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Also visit his website to purchase prints and follow him on Facebook and Instagram to stay up to date with what he’s working on!

Review of “The Seducer's Diary”

It is not enough to conquer, one must know how to seduce. – Voltaire

After twelve years I finally took the suggestion of a good friend and read The Seducer’s Diary. It did not take more than a dozen pages of anticipation for me to start to understand why this was such a formative book for her, for alongside the oft-told tale of a boy wooing a girl was a powerful undercurrent of insightful observations about love and other powerful forces which motivate human action.

One such subject of the book that I deeply enjoyed was Kirkegaard’s description of the gradations of various feelings elicited through various romantic gestures. Each one carries with it a certain psychic energy – if they are receptive objects of affection. From looks to words he describes the way in which different types of can make a young girl blushes. He illustrates a “long game” approach to winning the seducing a young girl considered to be the height of attraction both physically and morally. This approach of her as a specimen to be won is, according to lore, the means that the author used to encourage the quick psychic healing of his betrothed upon his departure and annulment of their pre-marital vows of commitment.

The form of seduction that Kirkegaard takes is a slow one, first insinuating himself into her life through a friend and then through letters and social events gaining greater sway over her mind. This excerpt from Either/Or contains a number of journalistic styled notes and short letters that are voiced as an explanation to his actions or are sent from K to Cordelia. This facsimile of old correspondence or that which was fictionally altered to appear as a document of amorous ephemera provides a compelling form for reflections on life, love and honesty. One of which that Kierkegaard makes that I found especially lovely was his analogy about love:

“When it comes to the labyrinth of her heart, every young girl is an Ariadne; she holds the thread by which one can find the way through – but she possesses it in such a way that she herself does not know how to use it.”

For K, the path to love is not about immediate infatuation based upon sexual desire, something that is repeatedly criticized as it leads the urges to a tempestuous psychic place to be avoided. It is, instead the slow fertilizing thoughts that helps the spirit grow into a recognition of the male’s spiritually directive role. This is resisted on the grounds of pride, and this dynamics informs a dialectical dances between the lovers whose steps are the movements and memories created between the too. Each choice of action and response informs the love created and determines whether or not it is a healthy one or one that is diseased due to excessive reification of the other. Writing this in this format makes the lessons learned seem dry and obtuse – but this distillation of the content of longer, lyric language is a far cry from Kirkegaard’s style. It has many similarities, at points, to two of my favorite writers – Henry Miller and Milan Kundera.

The seduction of Cordelia by K is brought to an end when it seems that K has come to doubt his spiritual fortitude. His quest to win her, what he once wanted, now seems anathema to him. Amusingly enough this seems to give credence to the Taylor Swift lyrics “Boys only want love if it’s torture.” He is of the belief that by breaking things off with her, she will develop to even greater heights of character than were she to remain with him. Being that woman is inherently, to K, a being-for-others she will, upon reflecting on their break up Cordelia can find true freedom. This seems to be because, despite his imbrications against it, he seems to have an aesthetic constitution as it relates to love and wants a certain resistance.

Something else that I found amusing while reading the books were the techniques Kierkegaard uses to win the attentions of his inamorata, Cordelia. While by no means a how to guide aligned with PUA literature like The Pickup Artist, the book nevertheless illustrates some of the methods outlined within. K engages in extended conversation with her Cordelia’s aunt in order to establish his value amongst her community of peers.
There are many things which I enjoyed about it and I have the feeling that this is one of those works that I will read again in a few years and get something new about it.

Review of “Lazarillo de Tornes and The Swindler: Two Spanish Picaresque Novels”

Lazarillo de Tornes and The Swindler: Two Spanish Picaresque Novels continues my study of the titularly named genre. Two young boys follow paths to dissolute lives. Lacking the upward mobility available in economies that weren’t primarily based upon slave labor extraction of mineral resources, their birth in the lower classes itself made certain things impossible in the way of the Spanish World. Apprenticeship would thus not take the form of tutelage under craftsman or artisans but among some of the most dejected members of the lumper-proletariat.

Lazarillo is the tale of a 14 year old young man whose unfortunate mothers leads her to give away her soon to an itinerant blind man in order to be relieved of the effort of caring for him. The seemingly affable despite his misfortunate loss of eyesight demeanor quickly drops once they are far from the house and walking on the way to the next city. The blind man demands him verbally and hits him of the head with his staff. he further abuses him and as he is the one who holds all of the coins received while begging is stingy with how he feeds his ward. Lazzarillo finds a number of ways to out guile the clever man. But he does learn a lot, and through their conversations Lazarillo comes to see a much more skeptical view of the Spanish Catholic’s religious beliefs and practices. They break their relationship, however, after a number of altercations following the blind man’s discovery of the ruses. After Lazarillo picks off enough cash to make it on his own for a while he has the blind man unwittingly jump into a pylon and then leaves him bloody and concussed to look after himself.

He briefly comes under the employ of a provincial noble that is on his way to become a student at a school for the elite. As they enter an inn to find shelter for the night, they are both quickly worked over by a group of smooth talking con-men. Lazarillo only realizes their deceit after his master is forced to pay the bill for all of their food and drink and he has lost all of his money gambling. He is dismissed and is thus forced to begging. It is while he is walking the streets of Maqueda singing pleas that he’d learned while working with the blind man that a priest stops in front of him. He listens briefly and then tells him he is now under his employ and to follow him. His next master is not physically violent like the last, but is strict and like the blind man is stingy with food. As such, like before, he decides he mush rely upon deception in order to supplement his meagre caloric intake. The task of stealing from the bread box is no Oceans affair, but the length at which he carries it on is a testament to his cunning. The descriptions of the Priest getting so enraged over a few crumbs being removed from the bread box and the demands of austerity placed upon Lazarillo is another not so subtle criticism of the Church.

Without getting into every little twist and turn of the novel, I’ll just state that additional deeds of deviousness occurs. The writing style has a a faced based economy of language. It develops quickly from the tradition of writing about a young boys development to a series of deceits enacted upon superiors because of the belief that allegiance to the self is the only true allegiance that one should have if one wants to move forward in the world. The book ends with the patina of a dignified life, and whether the question of whether or not such self-deceit is worth the cost of no longer having to wonder from where he’ll next get his meal and a place to rest his head.

The Swindler is the other story contained in the Penguin Classics pairing. It’s longer the Lazarillo and does not depict a similar transition away from criminality to semi-respectability. As the book’s title, a reference to the protagonist, suggest the plot revolves around someone that is essentially bad. His badness, however, mainly accelerates as a result of his choices to accompany people. This rogue’s gallery isn’t the only one unfavorably depicted, the Church’s isn’t kind to them either. They are, alternately,  schemers, pederasts, tight-wads, delusional in their adherence to certain ungodly practices.

The witches and heretics fair little better. In the opening of The Swindler, the protagonist is advised by his witch, whore of a mother’s Moorish thieving non-Church sanctioned husband: “If you’re crafty, you can get away with anything.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, many years after this exchange he is hung and dismembered by his mother’s brother the hangman. Seeing these pieces hung around the entrance to the city walls as as he comes home to receive his inheritance, shocks him. But he was going to carry on.

The confessor of this tale does not merely seek to shock and amaze with grotesque scenes, he advises that this is also a lesson book, if one so looked at it, to live a life based based upon deceit, swindles, subterfuges, lies, all around craftiness. Unlike Lazarillo, the writer’s character does not always have at least some of our sympathies. From unfortunate circumstances he adopts the wrong lessons and applies them in such a way that while getting admiration from a rotating band of conniving thieves he obtains a correct opprobrium from the well to do class which he aspires by false pretenses to marry himself into. A blow to the head leaves him with a telling disfigurement the exacerbates his willingness to commit criminal acts and live a debauched life. At this point, in no uncertain terms, he is a man that embodies a dangerous form of criminality. He takes a view similar to that of a N.W.A. anthem and goes on a drunk spree that results in a number of complications he must now flee with his whore lover.

I

The Hipster Demagogue, The Leftist Professor & The Manic Pixie Dream Girl

The post-conference party’s second wave had arrived and soon
I notice familiar sly hand gestures, so tag on to the end
Of the exodus from the Christmas light lit living room to
The dilapidated upstate New York porch packed with old couches.

My mouth is soon on the blunt after a friendly inquiry
And we get to talking about the sessions we’d seen,
And what it will mean for the Social Justice Movement in America
To have a Black President as The Man in power for the first time ever.

The mixed race political theorist that the other students
Call Heideggerian-Anarchist behind his back, or so my friend
Tells me, performs a longwinded paean to Possibilities
That I, a historian, counter with a less sanguine assessment.

Having been pulled under the wing of someone that’s
Made a career of saying such things in glossy magazines
He counters my empiricism with arrogant idealism –
I almost respond with blows, but think  “decorum”, hit it again then go.

I float past those spastically dancing to the irregular beats
And lyrics with love-lost themes on the uneven living room
Back to the seat that I had just occupied only to find that
It’s now been taken by the event’s keynote speaker.

His scarf brushes again and again against the band
On his ring finger as he gesticulates high to low
In and out to emphasize whatever he’s explaining
To the manic pixie dream girl sitting next to him.

There’s a red string braided into her unkempt bleached
Orange hair, she wears a chain necklace with boho baubles,
Has a glass of five-dollar-a-bottle champagne in her hand
And a neighbor looking up at me with a fuck off stare.

I lie through my teeth and give compliment to his speech
That claimed an understanding of Ancient Greek Tragedy
Should inform how we frame resistance to contemporary policies
And that seizing the state is no way to stop neoliberalism.

Given this gem of status in front of his hopeful conquest
He repeats in his West Herts accent the same jest he opened with
About how glad he was that while the TSA did cause delay,
X-rays can’t yet reveal worldviews and so he was able to make it.

Turning to assess her reception he smiles seeing her do the same,
Unaware that she came from VT to see me and is mine, for now;
His face again frowns as I bend down and say just loud enough for
The three of us: I’ve grown tired of this, let’s go back to the hotel

Let’s forget all the things we think we know and just go
At each other like the animals we are for as long as
Our bodies will last and she says: Yes, let’s.
And this is why I love her, in my own way.

Review of “BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family”

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Cause nothing says “low-key” like putting billboards of yourself and your gang name around Atlanta.

I’d first heard about Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family via trap songs where his name gets dropped. I didn’t think much about it at the time but when doing research on gangs in Miami for the novel series I’m writing I came across their name again. I watched a video that Big Meech had released shortly before he went to prison and a documentary after and was intrigued. I came across a series of articles that Mara Shaloup had written about them as well as a book length treatment that she gave them titled BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family, so I decided to read it. I enjoyed the book. It’s light and quick reading and though remembering the names and relationships of people with multiple aliases was a little confusing at first, the chart included in the book helped make things clear.

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Guwop so icey.

The story presented is fascinating and illustrates why Big Meech and the gang he started with his brother Terry became so famous within the hip-hop community. The most obvious manner why he has been so celebrated within that community is his promotion of Young Jeezy at the beginning of his career. While not an official signee to the BMF crew, he clearly gained from being associated with BMF members by gaining a greater aura of authenticity. Shaloup touches upon this and also tells an aside story of the conflict between Jeezy and Gucci Mane that left an associate of the former dead following an attempted robbery. Another reason for Meech’s lionization in the rap community is his attempt at going legit through a record label. While Bleu Davinci, an BMF associate that also engaged in cocaine trafficking, was it’s sole signee – it’s likely that it may have one day been a launching pad for rappers. One of the pictures shown in the book is of a conversation between Meechie and Nelly and his connection with Puff Daddy (Meech employed his cousin), T.I. and other important rappers is also detailed. In a way, this dynamic and these interactions seems like Meech wanted his life to imitate the musical art that he and his crew were so fond of.

One of the aspects of the book that I enjoyed was the description of trafficking craft. How certain hidden compartments in cars were created and opened, pay rates for couriers versus traffickers, means of laundering money, the manner of processing the uncut cocaine for distribution to associated seller, the different types of employee relationships that existed, the wildly excessive partying and extravagant purchases, difficulties felt when trying to “stay off the radar”, how relationships were formed with other crews so that wars were avoided, the relationships forged and destroyed over fear. It makes for compelling reading as even though it’s hard to identify with the people being described one still can’t help but wonder at what point someone is going to get caught. While reading I kept feeling wondrous anticipation as to what it was that would lead to someone’s arrest and, once that was done, wondering if they would snitch.

It’s this, in fact, that makes me feel a little uneasy about the celebrity which Meech has received. Shaloup doesn’t delve into these sorts of reflections, sticking more with the journalists craft, however after reading this and a number of the telephone transcripts available for perusal in the very large prosecutorial file on B.M.F. it’s clear the amount of stress that was felt by the individuals involved in the enterprise. The parties were like over the top cathartic releases for they seemed to all recognize that this was a house of cards and thought they were flying high – such heights meant that like Icarus they’d soon come crashing down. The sole factors involved in the safety maintenance of the operation seemed to be Meech’s code of conduct – No talking on the phone and make your employees love you first and also fear you so they don’t snitch – and a few corrupt people in minor government offices that could provide info or fake identification cards. While not sighting the tails that followed them, they all seemed to recognize – as more bodies of innocents and potential witnesses piled up and as police came to see that people which could potentially testify to crimes would clam up on learning who the suspects were – that greater police attention was being paid to them.

While the greater depth of personal insight into “the game” that I was hoping for was not to be found in the book through quotes or any interview with Meech, I found something of the sort while reading an interview. It seems that after a few years in the pen, when his legal options are dried up, his once boisterous, rebellious energy has disappeared. In his own words he states:

I’m crying inside. I’ve been in the hold on ’23 and 1′ [23 hours in cell and one hour out per day] since June 2011. This SMU sh*t is like a torture camp for real. First, showers are only on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Both me and my celly have to cuff up whether one of us is leaving to go to rec, shower, or medical, or if both of us are leaving. Everywhere we go, our hands are in black box handcuffs behind our back with a C.O. holding our cuffs, walking with us. I’m always trying to get out of my handcuffs first because you never know when your celly may have a bad day and jump you while you still have your cuffs on.
There’s three or four fights or stabbings daily, especially since it’s hot. If you disobey them, you’ll get a heavy dose of tear gas, which has the whole building choking and coughing, eyes burning. Then they’ll put you in restraints handcuffed extra tight with a chain around your waist, shackled. I’ve heard grown men cry crocodile tears from their hands swelling and nerve damage from the cuffs. If that’s not enough, they have another form of punishment called “Four Points” where they put you on your back chained around both ankles and wrists in a very cold room with the lights on. Everyone who reads this should look up Lewisburg SMU online and read about the deaths, disfigurements, and inhumane conditions and brutality that goes on in here. So, my days are like a living hell.

It’s at this point that I start to agree with some of the people in the comments section of a number of Hip Hop news sites that despite his “success” it was all a big waste.

One of the other aspects that I found interesting in the book is the narratives about BMF associates that tried to start successful side business to launder money and to potentially become a platform to go legit. There was the BMF record label, of course, but within the story Mara also accounts for a recording studio, a high-end car dealerships and a number of other enterprises. Ironically but perhaps not so surprisingly, the successes that BMF had selling drugs was undermined by their failures as actual businessmen. Another irony is that despite all of the criticisms made by Terry against his brother Meech, it was the latter’s generous attitude and willingness to engage in opulent conspicuous consumption at strip clubs and night clubs with his subordinates that motivated them to not snitch on him once caught. Not that their testimony would have been the point on which the prosecution’s case would have rested in full – but it’s worth noting: as a means of maintaining organizational morale, it turns out that warmth and affection rather than coldness and annoyance have a significant impact.

Yet another major irony illustrated in the book is that after the capture of the Black Mafia Family, the drug task force which had helped bring them down gets disbanded following the accidental death of an elderly woman that the Atlanta Police Department tried to frame as a cocaine trafficker. While not widely announced in the paper, the presence was common knowledge amongst the criminal elements in the area and following this trade picked up apace and with greater openness. This time, however, it was largely done by Mexican gangs with military backgrounds that made the 270 million brought in by the Black Mafia Family look like peanuts.

theplayers

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Some of the original notes and articles from which made the book was written can be found here.


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The historical revisionism and false dilemma of Matt Kibbe's views on Cuban Socialism

https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/03/why-is-rock-and-roll-the-first-thing-socialist-ban

An acquaintance recently posted the above video and I was a taken aback. I’m no specialist on Cuban history, but what was presented didn’t seem right to me as I knew many of claims he was making to be half-truths, not correctly contextualized or were outright lies.

 

Let just consider some of the claims made.

1) Matt Kibbe quotes Castro as saying that Rock and Roll was the “Music of the Enemy”. Well, if you are a nationalist that didn’t like the fact that United States capital was controlling the political situation in the country than it was. Following the Spanish-American war Cuba was no longer a Spanish colony but an American Protectorate. From 1898 to 1935

4812412_origWhat was the Platt Amedment?

  • Cuba could not make any treaty with another nation that the U.S. did not agree to.
  • Cuba must allow the US to buy or lease a naval base.
  • S. had the right to intervene in Cuban conflict to protect it.
  • Cuba had to keep it’s debts low to prevent foreign countries from landing troops to enforce payment.

This amendment was used multiple times in order to bolster different factions of the Cuban political elite that were protecting American investments in the sugar and railroad industries. At this time the Cuban elite – predominantly peninsulares and lighter skinned mulattoes – were exceptionally racist and prized American culture. In the period after the Platt Amendment’s repeal, despite the Good Neighbor policy much of the American extensions of power at times when U.S. capital was threatened remained the same. Consider the U.S. history in the Caribbean – even before the Cuban Revolution the U.S. had established a habit of propping up military dictators throughout Latin America for financial gain and 1961 Cuba’s neighbor, Dominican Republic, had over 20,000 US troops on the island that were fighting a Communist-inspired insurgency against American-backed rule!

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2) Kibbe claims that Fidel Castro “banned rock music” in his country? A little research shows that while The Beatles were banned for two years, from 1964-1966, by 1974 the MNT (Nueva Tropa Movimiento) helped to end this often unenforced “ban” on certain musical acts playing in public.

(‪https://books.google.com/books?id=Q55Z8YPH_XoC&pg=PA214… ; ‪https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_rock ; ‪http://www.ipsnews.net/…/cuba-maps-its-rock-music-history/)

3) Following the banned music claim, Matt Kibbe alleges that “you could be beaten, jailed or send to a work camp for having long hair.” The manner in which transitions to a 2008 example of this gives the impression that this has gone on continuously since that point. As the above has already shown, this is not true.

The example that Kibbe gives, is also more complex than he informs us. The names of the band (which Kibbe doesn’t cite) is Porno Para Ricardo. Readings this article for context, it becomes apparent that Matt is grossly misrepresenting both what happened to the band as well as the overall context. I recommend reading the whole article, but here’s an except from the close that does a good job summarizing the complexities of this.

“the band’s oppositional stance is complicated by the fact that Gorki’s pronouncements dovetail—at least in some aspects—with the rhetoric of the Miami right. For example, in interviews with the foreign media, Gorki has suggested that the Cuban government has purposefully caused food shortages and described the leadership as motivated by a desire to “humiliate” the people. Such statements are rarely heard on the island, despite the proliferation of other types of complaints and allegations, yet they are daily fare in Miami.

Although the band has no formal political affiliation and states that it has never accepted funds from abroad, the possibility of such a relationship is latent, as suggested by the Cuban American National Foundation’s immediate offer to provide legal assistance to Gorki.”

4) Haymarket. The Palmer Raids. Pinkertons. American Legion. Red Squads and Special Investigations Bureau’s committed to undermining radicals throughout every major city in the United States. The KKK’s mass entry into policing. Florida’s Johns Committee. Detroit’s Black Legion. New York’s Bureau of Special Services. Los Angeles’ Public Disorder Intelligence Division. Philadelphia’s Civil Defense Squad. Memphis’ Defense Intelligence Unit. McCarthyism. The FBI’s COINTELPRO. House Un-American Activities Committee. House Internal Security Committee. Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Internal Security. The corporate, extra-legal origins of the Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit.The Tenney Committee. The assassination of the Black Panthers. The fracturing of the Students for a Democratic Society. The attempt to blackmail Martin Luther King, Jr. The monitoring of anti-war groups.

These are important instances of American history to know when considering the binary the Kibbe is setting up with Socialism as Evil and Capitalism as Good. They are important as it they are all examples of times when the U.S. government spied on citizens, beat up activists, prevented mail that’s considered politically unsavory to those in power from being sent, assassinating activists, and all around having their lives interfered with by the U.S. state. This list isn’t even a comprehensive one of all of the examples of the massive state intervention in the political lives of Americans. So let’s not buy into this dichotomy of Socialism bad cause you can’t express yourself, cause it ain’t true.

5) If you are going to define any sort of large social operations, be it Capitalism or Socialism, any encapsulation of it to two words is a grave distortion of it. The two words that Kibbe uses is “plan” and “conformity”, which could equally be used to describe capitalism – owners create a “plan” for production based upon their market knowledge and capital and require workers to “conform” to their wishes through wage labor in order to produce. Socialism could be better stated as a system of political economy wherein workers own and direct the means of production through the state. This sort of faulty generalization allows him to replace what he is calling socialism with what is more properly called authoritarianism. What’s the difference? Check this video out for a brief primer: (‪https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwYmcbRYi1w)

6) Kibbe claims that with Socialism you can’t get no satisfaction, however there are many counterfactuals to prove this wrong – from the quasi-socialist Nordic countries having the highest rates of happiness to the nostalgia of people in the former Soviet Bloc for the stability offered by the government without it’s repressive aspects.

(‪http://www.forbes.com/…/norway-denmark-finland-business…; ‪https://news.usc.edu/…/are-socialists-happier-than…/)

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Matt Kibbe’s video presents the viewer with a false dilemma, it is either Capitalism and Freedom or Socialism and Repression. It furthermore distorts Cuban history prior to the revolution both as an official protectorate and as an unofficial one. Arthur Schelsinger, Jr reported about the country under Batista that: “The corruption of the Government, the brutality of the police, the government’s indifference to the needs of the people for education, medical care, housing, for social justice and economic justice … is an open invitation to revolution.” As this short article shows this is not the case and the claims he made are off for a number of reasons. I hope you found this article interesting and that you can gain greater media savvy as a result of it.

15 Reasons Why Teachers Make Great Content Marketers

There are a lot of reasons why those trained as teachers make highly effective content marketers. Here is a list 15 reasons with short explanations.

  1. Teachers have to differentiate instruction in the classroom, so know how to differentiate content to produce for different audiences.

Any teacher worth their salt will tell you that it’s through approaching the same material in a variety of ways that allows for the greatest learning gains for their students. Visual aids, kinesthetic manipulation of symbolic objects and auditory engagement all should be used to obtain the highest possible learning gains. Great content marketers are able to determine how visual engagement through artifacts such as infographics, videos and graphics can synergistically be combined with text and audio to convey information pertinent to their buyers journey.

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  1. Teachers have to repackage and repurpose materials for their lesson plans, so they know how to reuse content.

Teachers are faced with an ever-changing audience, and one lesson that might do great for a particular group of students may not be so effective for another. Recognizing the same is true for their publications, great content marketers will create material for a variety of different marketing personas.

  1. Teachers have to track student progress over time, so they know how to quantify progress for marketing,

Before students learn new material they use pre-assessment strategies in order to determine the depth to which certain material is already understood. Once they have determined a baseline, they are able to build upon that knowledge – a process known as scaffolding. Great content marketers recognize that not everyone is not at the same point on the buyers journey and is thus able to create a number of sign posts to help them get to their destination.

  1. Teachers have to document their daily and weekly lesson plans, so they know how to prepare work reports.

Managing a classroom is but one side of the coin of teaching. The other, lesson planning and record keeping often takes up nearly as much time as that spent with students. Through the latter component, teachers are able to document gains. Great content marketers do the same to share this information with clients.

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  1. Teachers have to prepare multiple week lesson plans on various units of inquiry, so they know how to organize and enact a publishing schedule.

A good teacher knows that they can’t possibly achieve the most out of their classroom time unless every minute is accounted for with corresponding activity. Many teachers use formulas on the daily level – such as beginning of the class reviews the previous lesson plan, explanation of key words and concepts to be addressed that day, learning activities and end of class reflection – as well as on the unit level – such as pre-assessment strategies, lessons plans and formative tests. Great content marketers are able to create material that is valuable unto itself and that can also be an element of keystone content – longer form content that lowers PPC costs and helps to establish a business as a thought leader in the industry.

  1. Teachers have to give precise instructions to students lest uncertainty cause problems, so they know how to work well with other marketing staff.

Having to explain unclear directions or a test questions is both embarrassing and a waste of classroom time. Good teachers recognize how imprecise language can lead to confusion and consistently seek to avoid such situations from arising. Good marketers always keep their messages clear so that similar loss of productivity within a collaborative work environment doesn’t occur.

  1. Teachers have to come up with interesting ways to present their material lest students lose interest, so they know how to make compelling marketing content.

Having differentiated methods of teaching is certainly important, but without the initial student buy in teachers are fighting an uphill battle. Whether it is through a displaying an image that fascinates student’s attention or asking a provocative question, it is often the first few moments that determines whether classroom participation will be active or passive. Great content marketers know not only how to present information in a variety of manner but how to immediately gain the interests of various marketing personas and to hold it.

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  1. Teachers have to stay abreast of current best practices, so are used to viewing work as a career requiring continuing education.

In order to maintain their status as certified teaching credentials, teachers must attend in-service training or take college level classes in order to stay abreast of the latest research-based best practices for teaching. Great content marketers must do the same sort of research in their field as changes in the manner in which search engines operate have and will continue to cause content markets to adjust their strategies and tactics.

  1. Teachers are savvy cultural consumers and disseminators, so they can apply this in creative endeavors to help build brand value.

Once brand awareness has been established, brand association is the most important factor that will create brand loyalty to consumers. Images, symbols, attributes and values associated with a brand – their use helps to elicit feelings within the customer beyond the fulfillment of their immediate need for a specific product or service. Teachers apply this knowledge in the creation of the educational guises that change based upon the composition and subject area content of their classes. Great content marketers are aware of this as well and exploit this via their marketing products.

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  1. Teachers have to apply rubrics in the classroom to determine which methods work and which don’t, so they know how to apply the principles of A/B testing.

Teachers not only test their students, but test their tests in order to determine whether or not certain material they covered was effective at a statistical. If all students miss questions five through nine, for example, certain material was not presented in an appropriate manner and should be covered differently in the future. Great content marketers engage in the same practices in order to determine which aesthetic or message is most compelling.

  1. Teachers in humanities present content that is written at the grade level most Americans read at, so they know how to produce content that is not too complex for their readers.

Teachers that stop lecturing or a classroom discussion to explain a word lose their momentum. While teaching vocabulary is certainly an important component of teaching it must not be an activity that is unnecessarily frequent. Great content marketers write according to their audience’s reading abilities. While the level of content complexity will shift based upon the outlet for the content, they certainly know how to keep things single enough so rapport is established.

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  1. Teachers have to stay professional when parents are dissatisfied with their child’s grades, so they know how to respectfully communicate with and manage the expectations of clients.

It’s commonly recognized among teachers that while parents once blamed their own children for their poor grades, they now seek to place blame on those that give them. Passive or active aggression has lead to many contracts to include clauses that allow teachers to have administration present when dealing with hostile parents. Great teachers, however, are able to defuse such situations in a way that they need not involve others. Over a long enough time frame even the greatest content marketers will too deal with such expressions of concern over failure as unlike with direct marketing, inbound marketing can sometimes take a longer period of time to see returns. Calmly explaining the situation, respectfully addressing any questions no matter how they are worded and reiterating that both parties desire the same things from the relationship can go a long way to maintaining client satisfaction.

  1. Teachers have to follow State and Federal Educational Standards, so can easily abide by the guidelines set by clients, search engines, news outlets and content platforms.

Teachers operate under an incredibly large number of regulations on the methods and goals informing their work. Adherence to them is often the difference between those that stay in the field and those that don’t have their contract renewed. Great content marketers are able to follow the explicit guidelines of their clients as well those set by the outlets that their content is hosted upon.

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  1. Teachers are highly skilled in researching their subject area, so can apply these abilities to others areas for content development.

Teachers in the humanities transmit a variety of subject area content as well as critical thinking and communication skills. They also know how to find the information that they don’t know. Great content marketers do extensive research into the informational and promotional outlets of goods and services before they write their first piece and from this are able to produce better work and can see which content topics aren’t being addressed that could be useful to clients.

  1. Teachers know how to work in groups, so can bring that to a marketing team.

While teachers seek to create the greatest learning gains through their lesson plans, it’s sometimes the brief one-on-one contact that allows for students to obtain those “A-ha!” moments that will stick with them for the rest of their life. Great content marketers working together on a project don’t seek to compete with one another for recognition but to co-operate with one another on behalf of their client.

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If you are interested in learning about how the content marketer/teacher who wrote this can help out your business, please contact me!

Death Stands Just Outside My Window

Death Stands Just Outside My Window

In the tree outside my bedroom window
Overlooking the preserve, not ten feet from me
A dozen black vultures
Jerk and twitch their veiny black necks
As they hop, fight and squawk
Over the body of an opossum
With a black tire mark
Over it’s spine and back legs.
I’m not sure if it’s their beaks pulling at furred flesh
Or a dying breath that had it the words I’m sure
It would wish for,
But its mouth seems to twitch at each touch
Of beak on body.

As I watch them caw and compete for the corpse
Another vulture alights on the outskirts
To see if it too can get in on the action and then
A green gator of maybe seven or eight feet
That must have been sitting,
Waiting,
Watching far longer than I,
Or maybe that just moved so slow
That not a one of the murder of carrion crows noticed it
Leaps from the brackish water
To the side of the embankment with jaws open.
I’m not sure if it mistook their numbers for its safety
Or was simply to hungry to care,
And was thus reckless,
But as the bird is pulled into the water by the neck and wing
It seems jut to accept what is, it doesn’t even scream.

Death stands just outside my window,
In intention and in accident,
With resistance and acceptance –
And as a cloud passes that dims the grim scene
For a moment I see my mirrored reflection in the glass
That reminds me that I too am locked in such a struggle to survive
For I too am matter and energy existing across space and time.
I’m not yet sure what that means to me
Nor that absolute certainty
Is a beneficial currency with which to trade
In the time left until I fill a grave
But looking at this scene I perceive I too am Death,
Speeding down the highway and waiting at the water’s edge
In my own way.