37 Matching Annotations
  1. Apr 2016
    1. Suddenly, everywhere we are afflicted with aggressive females on television talk shows yapping about how mistreated American women are, suggesting that marriage has put us in some kind of “slavery,” that housework is menial and degrading, and—perish the though—that women are discriminated against. New “women’s liberation” organizations are popping up, agitating and demonstrating, serving demands on public officials, getting wide press coverage always, and purporting to speak for some 100,000,000 American women.

      Many people regard women who work in the house taking care of children and the like as somehow lesser than women who work outside of the home. This is a result of the breakdown of the american family unit. It is crucial to understand the importance of raising our children to be good citizens. Therefore, child rearing takes a lot of effort, and women have the stereotype of being the nurturing, loving ones. However, some women show no desire to be a housewife and that is also perfectly acceptable given the necessary precautions are taken by BOTH the husband and wife to ensure their children are properly cared for if they have any. It is important to remember that a housewife is equally important as a breadwinner in their particular situation. Our society must rediscover the astronomical importance of teaching our children proper behavior or risk further damage to our society.

    2. The truth is that American women never had it so good. Why should we lower ourselves to “equal rights” when we already have the status of special privilege?

      This statement embodies Schlafly's whole argument. Schafly cannot see how so called "feminists" can be wanting more than what they have. No, men and women are not equal, but women, as Schafly notes, get special privilege. Although this is a contested view at the time, Schafly sticks by it. Homemaking and child bearing are seen as a privilege...

    3. The truth is that American women never had it so good. Why should we lower ourselves to “equal rights” when we already have the status of special privilege?

      Truthfully, in a more current situation, I couldn't agree more with this sentence. Realistically, men and women, genetically, were not built the same way. In opposition to the author and in reference to the rest of the passage, she is going about the wrong way to prove her point. For example, maternity leave, I believe men deserve a paternity leave because it's their child as well. It should be equal since they are raising the baby together and beginning mothers and fathers usually have a tough time in the beginning adjusting. Although in a way I agree with this passage, I think some of her arguments are weak. For example, when she talks about divorce and one child goes with the mom and the other goes with the dad. Having divorced parents, the children do not get split-they go to each parent together.

    4. Phyllis Schlafly, “The Fraud of the Equal Rights Amendment” (1972)

      I thought that this was an interesting take on women's rights. It is a completely different way of thinking than most of the other articles we have read. It is also different than the few I have come across online. The author basically states that women have it better than men now. Why would women want these new laws to pass? However I agree with my fellow classmates that the author missed the point in "equal rights". It seems as if she is admitting women are inferior to men." They cannot fight in foxholes or support their children," only the men can do these kinds of things.

      It seems as if she is a more "traditional woman". One who would be offended by women saying their lives were incomplete just being stay-at-home moms. She is using her voice to show the opinion of the many women who were happy staying at home. It seems like this is a passage from her own version of "The Feminine Mystique", One where stay-at-home moms are happy.

    5. Why any woman would support such a ridiculous and un-American proposal as this is beyond comprehension.

      The way she refers to a movement which is promoting equal rights as "un-American" seems to me like a bit of an oxymoron. It's like saying that fighting for what America was founded in is un-American. It makes no sense. Her language sounds as though she cannot understand why any woman would be unhappy living such a sheltered and cushioned life. It would be interesting to find out what type of upbringing or education the author had that may give reason as to why she is so complacent.

    6. And yet another quote that the modern feminist would find absurd. The author once again makes it seem like women shouldn't have to work to support their family just "because". She fails to identify a logical reason for why not. The value system that is being used to define this norm is based off of tradition alone and not on substance.

    7. reject

      I couldn't help but roll my eyes after reading this passage. The author here is suggesting women's inferiority by suggesting that women are some how less capable of handling war than men. Its ironic because the point of the article is that women are more than equal yet here the author totally contradicts the point by suggesting that they can't handle something that men can.

      Additionally, the writer is using scare tactics and slippery slope logical fallacies to make the reader believe that if women are given equal rights... they will be drafted and they will have to go to war.

      It is important to note the climate of this era. The Vietnam war had taken many lives and the US was still living under the "threat" of soviet communism. For this reason it is easy to see why this slimy tactic may have been used. War and the draft were on people's minds and playing into this fear was probably a highly effective way to try and preserve the status quo.

    8. The truth is that American women never had it so good. Why should we lower ourselves to “equal rights” when we already have the status of special privilege?

      This article is a completely different take on women's struggles. This article is going against those who want equal rights for women by saying that women have it better than equal, that they have certain privileges. This article says that it is a privilege to not have to work or go to war or even share your child in a divorce. These things would all be taken away with equal rights, allowing women to go to war, provide for the family, and even have shared custody in the case of a divorce. This side has some very interesting arguments for why women would not want equal rights, but they seem a little strange.

  2. Mar 2016
    1. Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen,

      This speech while a cry to end the war in Vietnam also pointed out some major flaws that lied within America at the time. King points out that we cannot give the vietnamese their freedom, nor can we give everyone in our country freedom(the blacks and women). He believes that this is a huge problem. The Government is to focused on money and foreign affairs. As a country we are to arrogant to address the many issues at home. King simply wonders how we can fix another broken nation when we are one ourselves. The government spends millions of dollars on fighting a war we should not be fighting instead of using that money on something that matters. Why not spend the money at home and try to create a better society for everyone? Our priorities were out of line during the time and I believe that King realized this even though the government itself did not.

      Just my opinion but i think amid all the tensions with the soviets etc. America was just trying to flex its muscles to show the soviets what we were capable of.

    2. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation’s history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement, and pray that our inner being may be sensitive to its guidance. For we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.

      This paragraph is in essence, sharing with the reader, or I guess the listener... what the ultimate point of this speech is. He is essentially stating that while speaking out for what is right is often times exceptionally difficult, it is what is ultimately what must be done. Martin Luther King Jr. mentions that already many have "begun to break the silence" and in doing so have opened up a dialogue amongst people. This is something that to him is important to celebrate because it showcases that a spirit of consciousness is coming from the American people and this is what will lead them out of the darkness. Martin Luther's attitude towards the Vietnam war can be expected, given his role in the civil right movement. The entire spirit of his movement was that change must come through compassion, kindness, and understand understanding... He was a proponent of the peaceful protest. He believed in speaking up against what is wrong and not resorting to violence. Given his negative outlook towards violence, it is to be expected that he would not condone the violence taking place in Vietnam. He would have believe that peaceful alternatives were available.

    3. My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettos of the North over the last three years, especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so, “What about Vietnam?” They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted.

      Martin Luther King points out the major inconsistencies that were prevalent and existent within the debate of the purpose, meaning, and tactics of the Vietnam War. Martin Luther King compares of his teachings versus the hypocritical stance of the Vietnam War. He uses his teachings of non-violent practices when fighting for a purpose in comparison to the violence that is being required for the people to use in Vietnam. He hates and showcases his uneasiness when trying to explain the reasoning for the violence, but there is no particular reason for the violence when fighting for a cause. His uncertainty resembles the uncertainty of President Johnson when he decided to go into a war that really did not possess a certain reason for a war besides the domino theory of communism even though Vietnam was truly out of our hands. The acts of the Vietnam War not only go against the morals of the United States but the morals of Martin Luther Kings, his teachings, and the people as well.

    4. They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1954—in 1945 rather—after a combined French and Japanese occupation and before the communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not ready for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long. With that tragic decision we rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination and a government that had been established not by China—for whom the Vietnamese have no great love—but by clearly indigenous forces that included some communists. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives.

      American is going against what we claim to value most, a nations independence. We looked over Vietnam's declaration in class and we noticed that there were many links to our own nation's declaration (as Dr. King states in this quote). Yet our nation is still not willing to let them be free in their own way. Our nation is forcing themselves upon Vietnam in order to make them what our nation believes to be free. As Dr. King states, this is our western arrogance and it is our nations biggest downfall. Our nation believes that if it is not in the way that our nation runs, then it must be wrong. Overall we are forcing our way into a country that is not ours to fix.

    1. In the field of politics, they have deprived our people of every democratic liberty. They have enforced inhuman laws; they have set up three distinct political regimes in the North, the Center, and the South of Viet-Nam in order to wreck our national unity and prevent our people from being united. They have built more prisons than schools. They have mercilessly slain our patriots; they have drowned our uprisings in rivers of blood. They have fettered public opinion; they have practiced obscurantism against our people. To weaken our race they have forced us to use opium and alcohol. In the field of economics, they have fleeced us to the backbone, impoverished our people and devastated our land. They have robbed us of our rice fields, our mines, our forests, and our raw materials. They have monopolized the issuing of bank notes and the export trade. They have invented numerous unjustifiable taxes and reduced our people, especially our peasantry, to a state of extreme poverty. They have hampered the prospering of our national bourgeoisie; they have mercilessly exploited our workers.

      This article was formatted very similarly to the United States Declaration of Independence and I assume many other declarations of independence. This declaration in particular seemed to be of a recorded history instead of a declaration of independence because it had not really even mentioned that the Vietnamese were making their own country until the end. This document also seemed less formal than the American declaration due to its length, ease to read, and more finger pointingly direct against the French. Finally, this declaration seems to be saying that while they respect America, France, and the other modern countries they are not willing to submit to them and they should not be taken advantage of because they are their own country.

    2. They have robbed us of our rice fields, our mines, our forests, and our raw materials. They have monopolized the issuing of bank notes and the export trade. They have invented numerous unjustifiable taxes and reduced our people, especially our peasantry, to a state of extreme poverty.

      When i read this I was expecting to see more similarities with our declaration of independence. Although the beginning is similar to ours, it does not mention any kind of major suffering like this, besides our right to not have taxation without representation. The vietnamese were begging for their independence from the French, this quote is significant because it shows how desperate they were for change.

    3. The whole Vietnamese people, animated by a common purpose, are determined to fight to the bitter end against any attempt by the French colonialists to reconquer their country. We are convinced that the Allied nations, which at Teheran and San Francisco have acknowledged the principles of self-determination and equality of nations, will not refuse to acknowledge the independence of Viet-Nam.

      The whole document is phrased much like the Declaration of Independence of the United States, and the way the Vietnamese presented their struggle against the French was as similar to how Americans had presented their struggle against Britain. They probably knew Americans at this time didn't like communists and were trying to present it in a way Americans might be able to understand (perhaps to deter Americans from aiding the French in taking back Vietnam). Yet, despite the similarities and the US agreeing nations should be self-governing, the US government just completely ignores the will of the Vietnamese people and goes to war against them anyway. They saw communism as such a threat that they couldn't see the hypocrisy.

  3. Feb 2016
    1. people who reach the age of sixty can be retired from the active labor of life and given an opportunity to have surcease and ease for the balance of the life that they have on earth.

      The problem is that older people have to retire due to an inability to continue with manual labor but do no have any money to live off of. Furthermore, while many would have previously moved in with their children many of the children were struggling to make ends meet themselves.

    1. taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income;

      http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5109 FDR talks about the inability of the government to pay its bills. Long discuses how the government and the people are falling further into debt. He quotes that the government is taking out a five billion dollar loan but little good is being done with it.

    2. taxes have risen

      "Taxes have risen" connects to the article of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Fire Side Chat. Within the article, there is a reference to the purpose of increased taxes toward citizens to aid in the reparations of the government debt because of increased spending to help reboot the economy but also pay back the increased amount of borrowing to restore all of the emergency funding that was appropriated for loans. Link:http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=14488

    3. Our greatest primary task is to put people to work.

      http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=14488 FDR has made it public that many are suffering due to the banks going belly up and unemployment. Not only were the people's credit suffering, but also the government's.

    1. I can bring my baby home, but I have no home to bring him to because I’m going to be put out.

      This was a huge problem during the Great Depression: people were losing jobs and were unable to pay their rent.

  4. Jan 2016
    1. We have been told by those who deal in misrepresentations that the farmers were not in sympathy with the wants and demands of laborers in town and city

      "The urban workmen are denied the right to organize for self-protection, imported pauperized labor beats down their wages, a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European condition"

      Distance was a huge issue with trying to unite the people and form a strong political movement. The farmers and the urban workers were suffering through similar problems of poverty. Both types were being exploited by the wealthy few; the urban workers were stuck in factories by the Captain of Industry while the farmers were constantly in debt to the merchants. The biggest struggle of the Populist party was to connect the two types of voters, and the main way they do that is through connecting their struggles.

    1. I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit.

      "We assert our purposes to be identical with the purposes of the National Constitution; to form a more perfect union and establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity."

      In these two documents they both use the constitution to prove their point, even though they are on opposite sides of the same problem. On one hand Grover Cleveland is saying that the Constitution doesn't allow for a bill to pass that only helps individuals, but on the flip-side the People's Party says that helping the farmers will create a more perfect union. The farmers wanted to have assurance that if their crops had a bad season they wouldn't have to starve for the rest of the year. Cleveland seems unsympathetic to the cause even though the happiness of the farmers directly affects how they'll vote during the election.

    1. “The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities. “The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What everything is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people.” [Wealth of Nations, Chapter 5]

      That's Adam Smith, giving us the labor theory of value much earlier than Marx.

    2. The labour theory of value is the proposition that the value of a commodity is equal the quantity of socially necessary labour-time required for its production.

      The 1892 Omaha Platform was, I think, drawing on the labor theory of value.

    1. make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want

      The economy is driven by supply and demand.

    2. Equality of political rights will not compensate for the denial of the equal right to the bounty of nature. Political liberty, when the equal right to land is denied, becomes, as population increases and invention goes on, merely the liberty to compete for employment at starvation wages. This is the truth that we have ignored. And so there come beggars in our streets and tramps on our roads; and poverty enslaves men whom we boast are political sovereigns; and want breeds ignorance that our schools cannot enlighten; and citizens vote as their masters dictate; and the demagogue usurps the part of the statesman; and gold weighs in the scales of justice; and in high places sit those who do not pay to civic virtue even the compliment of hypocrisy; and the pillars of the republic that we thought so strong already bend under an increasing strain.

      This paragraph wisely incorporates some of the key words found in our Pledge of Allegiance: liberty, justice, and republic. The passage highlights the corruption the hides behind the principles our country is prided on. "The pillars of the republic" for which we stand are weakening, because there is not truly liberty and justice for all. Liberty requires equality, and justice cannot be influenced by money.

    3. Liberty! it is a word to conjure with, not to vex the ear in empty boastings. For Liberty means Justice, and Justice is the natural law—the law of health and symmetry and strength, of fraternity and co-operation.

      Here George is saying that Liberty does not just have one empty meaning. Liberty applies to all who live in the United States regardless of color or sex. Liberty is the foundation the nation was founded on and as a country they needed to use it fully, not just give it to certain people.

    4.  the evils arising from the unjust and unequal distribution of wealth, which are becoming more and more apparent as modern civilization goes on, are not incidents of progress, but tendencies which must bring progress to a halt

      This particular section of the piece seems to really attack the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age (Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc.). My interpretation of the document is: George is trying to convey a thought most citizens wouldn't have thought of, and that is the thought, "money does NOT equal progress". There is plenty of money to be spread around in order to make an equal distribution of wealth. The reason why George feels progression is halted is because there is a flaw in the way that wealth is distributed.

    5. The tower leans from its foundations, and every new story but hastens the final catastrophe. To educate men who must be condemned to poverty, is but to make them restive; to base on a state of most glaring social inequality political institutions under which men are theoretically equal, is to stand a pyramid on its apex.

      Basically, George is referencing how educating those who are bound to live a life of poverty up-ends the progress that it develops. This can be seen by the disorder that the lower-class causes when they realize how mistreated they are.

    6. impetus

      According to Webster impetus is described as a driving force. In the context of the sentence it means a boost to progress.

    7. association of poverty with progress is the great enigma of our times

      Definition of enigma: A person or thing that is mysterious, puzzling, or difficult to understand

      Clarification: Some people find it difficult to understand why there is a correlation between poverty and progress

      Question: Can there ever be a time when every person benefits from progress?

    8. the evils arising from the unjust and unequal distribution of wealth, which are becoming more and more apparent as modern civilization goes on, are not incidents of progress, but tendencies which must bring progress to a halt

      Paraphrase: There is no coincidence that inequality is occurring in the world due to certain evils that are becoming more apparent as time passes and will lead to the end of progress.

      Context: People are beginning to recognize and voice their opinions about social inequality during this time period, such as unequal distribution of wealth. When before only a few people spoke out about this injustice. The inequality that is occurring is not an accident that occurs as time moves forward, but is the direct result of the corrupt mindset of some individuals. This mindset will cause civilization to stop progressing.

      Example: For example, some people still have the mindset that only prestigious citizens (meaning political figures or people whose family has had a legacy of being wealthy or well known) should be wealthy. This mindset hinders a community because everyone does not have equal access to resources and this inequality is the very thing that leads to poverty and an accumulation of poverty does not equal progress.

    1. It's unrealistic for individuals that posses money to be placed in the same category or respected in the same fashion as individuals that do not posses money.

    2. Nature still grants her rewards of having and enjoying, according to our being and doing, but it is now the man of the highest training and not the man of the heaviest fist who gains the highest reward.

      Nature remains the system which grants rewards amongst the people. Nature grants her rewards to individuals based on what they give and do within society. Furthermore, instead of the man that was born into unearned power, the individual that has worked, gained knowledge, and sculpted his craft will gain power and become successful.

    3. We shall thus lessen the inequalities.

      How will society lessen the characteristics of inequalities when a society wants to destroy liberty?

    4. It is impossible that the man with capital and the man without capital should be equal. To affirm that they are equal would be to say that a man who has no tool can get as much food out of the ground as the man who has a spade or a plough; or that the man who has no weapon can defend himself as well against hostile beasts or hostile men as the man who has a weapon. If that were so, none of us would work any more.

      The sentence highlights the social inconsistency within the age of the second industrial revolution. At this time, social inequality was due to political corruption and how wealth was distributed. Thus, the man with capital had more power and wealth than the man who does not have capital. Also, what I found distinct about this quote is that Sumner contrasted it with the idea of the first paragraph, in which he stated and acknowledges that equality was possible if everyone could "share" the wealth and power, then inequality would be solved. However, by stating the quote (highlighted), there would be no work and that it was necessary to have men with capital because they are the propellers of success in society.

    5. We can deflect the penalties of those who have done ill and throw them on those who have done better. We can take the rewards from those who have done better and give them to those who have done worse

      At first glance, Sumner seem to be saying: Let's punish those who are successful and reward those who are not. I think what Sumner really means by "penalties" is the consequences that come with not being successful (e.g. poor living conditions). Similarly, when he discusses giving the "rewards" to the less successful, he means that we should share the benefits of success (e.g. money) with those who may not have had the opportunities to succeed like their counterparts so that they may live better, healthier lives. For example, Carnegie had libraries built for the public so that they could access books for knowledge and entertainment, whereas they may never have had access to readily available, free books before.