Thursday, February 17, 2011
Assignment 8
In 100 words describe the set of ideas, facts or events that most opened your eyes. That is, describe what you will remember most about what you learned in the course.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Assignment 7
Please post your blog contribution between 5 pm Friday, Feb. 18 and 5 pm Saturday, Feb. 19.
From any of the first 208 pages in HoS, pick an incident that exemplifies racial injustice. In 100 words, briefly describe it and analyze what it is about the incident that is unjust.
From any of the first 208 pages in HoS, pick an incident that exemplifies racial injustice. In 100 words, briefly describe it and analyze what it is about the incident that is unjust.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Assignment 6
Once you have identified the intervention(s) or military operation assigned to you for the Wiki, do some research. Google the most recent intervention for the country assigned to you if there are more than one, or the military operation. Do some research on the Web. Try to learn how the people of the country into which the US intervened felt about it. What do you think would be their explanation for the intervention or military operation. Then adopt the perspective of a Latin American nationalist and write a 100 word contribution to the blog describing why the US intervened as it did.
The pairings.
[10+21]-Haiti; [5+20]-Operation Condor; [4+15]-Mexico;
[2+17+18]- Nicaragua; [11+13]-Operation Charly; [1+9]- Guatemala;
[14+24]- El Salvador; [7+22]-Iran-Contra; [6+23]-Chile;
[12+19]-Brazil; [8+16]-Uruguay.
The pairings.
[10+21]-Haiti; [5+20]-Operation Condor; [4+15]-Mexico;
[2+17+18]- Nicaragua; [11+13]-Operation Charly; [1+9]- Guatemala;
[14+24]- El Salvador; [7+22]-Iran-Contra; [6+23]-Chile;
[12+19]-Brazil; [8+16]-Uruguay.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Assignment 5
Blog.
“Anyone who refused to submit to what God himself had commanded was thus by definition a ‘rebel’ or an ‘unlawful combatant.’”
(Last Days of the Incas, p. 33)
“Most serene Inca! You will know that there are in the world two princes more powerful than all the rest. One of them is the supreme pontiff who represents God. He administers and rules all those who keep his divine laws, and teaches his holy word. The other is the emperor of the Romans, Charles V. king of Spain. These two monarchs, aware of the blindness of the inhabitants of these realms who disrespect the true God, maker of heaven and earth, and [who] adore…the very demon who deceives them, have sent our Governor and Captain General Don Francisco Pizarro and his companions and some priests, who are ministers of God, to teach Your Highness and all his vassals this divine truth and His holy law, for which reason they have come to this country.”
(Last Days of the Incas, p. 62)
From the perspective of a citizen living in 2011 with all that is going on in the world today, what do the statements above make you think? They were pronounced 500 years ago. How do they strike you? 130 years after Pizarro, the Puritans fled England in search of religious freedom in the New World. Nevertheless, within two years of their arrival they began slaughtering Indians under the same justification. That is, the Indians were heathens, non-Christian, barbaric and deserving of death. That slaughter lasted for 200 years in North America. Many of you read the article about Guatemala and the Alliance for Progress. Those of you who didn’t can read about it in the comments posted in Assignment 2 of the blog. In that article we see Christian missionaries (Catholic Action) forcibly imposing their beliefs upon Mayans who they continue to consider primitive and backward. Of course, today throughout Central Asia, in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, the same words used by the Spaniards are appropriated by radical Muslims in the name of Allah instead of the Christian God. Pizarro, the Puritans, and Muslims invoke these words at some level of sincere belief. But they also do it to justify conquest and control over other people and their land.
The point is to see constancy in human behavior, hypocritical as it has been and is. That which is constant is the use of ideology or theology (which is to say belief systems) to justify acquisition and/or control over other people’s labor and resources. It’s important to be on the look-out for this behavior in the past and the present. Therefore, for your blog contribution this week I want you to find an example of this behavior in the past or the present and to describe it in roughly 100 words.
Find an example (from the newspaper, history books or your own experience) in which an individual or group invokes an abstract belief (religious, patriotic, political or other) to legitimate their subsequent forcible control over other people’s labor and/or resources, and describe it. Remember to insert your class-list number at the start of your posting. All postings are due by Saturday, Feb. 5, at 5 pm.
“Anyone who refused to submit to what God himself had commanded was thus by definition a ‘rebel’ or an ‘unlawful combatant.’”
(Last Days of the Incas, p. 33)
“Most serene Inca! You will know that there are in the world two princes more powerful than all the rest. One of them is the supreme pontiff who represents God. He administers and rules all those who keep his divine laws, and teaches his holy word. The other is the emperor of the Romans, Charles V. king of Spain. These two monarchs, aware of the blindness of the inhabitants of these realms who disrespect the true God, maker of heaven and earth, and [who] adore…the very demon who deceives them, have sent our Governor and Captain General Don Francisco Pizarro and his companions and some priests, who are ministers of God, to teach Your Highness and all his vassals this divine truth and His holy law, for which reason they have come to this country.”
(Last Days of the Incas, p. 62)
From the perspective of a citizen living in 2011 with all that is going on in the world today, what do the statements above make you think? They were pronounced 500 years ago. How do they strike you? 130 years after Pizarro, the Puritans fled England in search of religious freedom in the New World. Nevertheless, within two years of their arrival they began slaughtering Indians under the same justification. That is, the Indians were heathens, non-Christian, barbaric and deserving of death. That slaughter lasted for 200 years in North America. Many of you read the article about Guatemala and the Alliance for Progress. Those of you who didn’t can read about it in the comments posted in Assignment 2 of the blog. In that article we see Christian missionaries (Catholic Action) forcibly imposing their beliefs upon Mayans who they continue to consider primitive and backward. Of course, today throughout Central Asia, in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, the same words used by the Spaniards are appropriated by radical Muslims in the name of Allah instead of the Christian God. Pizarro, the Puritans, and Muslims invoke these words at some level of sincere belief. But they also do it to justify conquest and control over other people and their land.
The point is to see constancy in human behavior, hypocritical as it has been and is. That which is constant is the use of ideology or theology (which is to say belief systems) to justify acquisition and/or control over other people’s labor and resources. It’s important to be on the look-out for this behavior in the past and the present. Therefore, for your blog contribution this week I want you to find an example of this behavior in the past or the present and to describe it in roughly 100 words.
Find an example (from the newspaper, history books or your own experience) in which an individual or group invokes an abstract belief (religious, patriotic, political or other) to legitimate their subsequent forcible control over other people’s labor and/or resources, and describe it. Remember to insert your class-list number at the start of your posting. All postings are due by Saturday, Feb. 5, at 5 pm.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Assignment 4
Blog. This week we will partner to do the blog and not the wiki. Each pair of partners, and one set of three will be assigned one of three essays in Chapter III that aren’t included in Reading assignment. They are listed as essays 4,5, and 6. The essays are: 4) “The Lions of Payara,” pp. 72-76; 5) “Ribbons and Rituals,” pp. 76-79 and 6) “Protagonist on a National Stage,” pp. 79-81. The pairings and assigned essay are:
[1+4] #4, [2+12] #5, [4+13] #6, [5+14] #4, [6+24] #5, [7+23] #6, [8+22] #4, [9+21] #5, [10+20] #6, [15+17+19] #4, [16+18] #5.
Read the assigned essay. Contact your partner(s) and determine what the two or three or you think is the most extreme form of manipulation used by the caudillo in the essay. Compose 100 word description of that manipulation and post it according to normal procedure between 5 pm Friday, Jan. 28 and 5 pm, Saturday, Jan. 29. This is a NEW procedure. Please pay attention. Do not post to the blog before Friday at 5 pm. I don’t want leaders to have too many followers.
[1+4] #4, [2+12] #5, [4+13] #6, [5+14] #4, [6+24] #5, [7+23] #6, [8+22] #4, [9+21] #5, [10+20] #6, [15+17+19] #4, [16+18] #5.
Read the assigned essay. Contact your partner(s) and determine what the two or three or you think is the most extreme form of manipulation used by the caudillo in the essay. Compose 100 word description of that manipulation and post it according to normal procedure between 5 pm Friday, Jan. 28 and 5 pm, Saturday, Jan. 29. This is a NEW procedure. Please pay attention. Do not post to the blog before Friday at 5 pm. I don’t want leaders to have too many followers.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Assignment 3
Post 100 words (more or less) providing your interpretation of the story told at the end of chapter 4, House of the Spirits, about the fox and the chickens. The story is metaphorical. What is it about (not just chickens and a fox) and how do you feel about it?
Friday, January 7, 2011
Assignment 2
Read the indented paragraph on page 265 of MLAH. It is a quotation from a 1954 report on the CIA. Then review and reflect on the six pages you have already read from Lars Schoultz about the 200-year set of prejudices US policy-makers have held toward Latin America (these are pages 274-280 in MLAH).
Post a comment on the blog describing an episode from the article you read in the Unit 1 Readings that illustrates the consequence to Latin America of US policy and prejudice during the Cold War (1945-1990).
Be sure to put your class list number in brackets at the start of your comment. Due by 5 PM, January 15.
Post a comment on the blog describing an episode from the article you read in the Unit 1 Readings that illustrates the consequence to Latin America of US policy and prejudice during the Cold War (1945-1990).
Be sure to put your class list number in brackets at the start of your comment. Due by 5 PM, January 15.
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