NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

The Michigan GOP's War on 'A People's History' by Matthew Kovac September 3, 2015 Common Dreams Michigan State Senator Patrick Colbeck is at it again. Back in 2013, Colbeck sponsored a bill calling for schools to institute a  Patriot Week  that would indoctrinate students with nationalist and militarist “history” lessons. Now, in a series of red-baiting  Facebook   posts , Colbeck is railing against late civil rights activist and historian Howard Zinn and the use of his book A People’s History of the United States in Michigan classrooms. First published in 1980, A People’s History popularized “history from below” by emphasizing the struggles of those overlooked by mainstream historical accounts: indigenous people, African Americans, women, and working people. In the decades since its publication, this bottom-up approach to U.S. history has sold more than two million copies. Zinn’s work is hardly a new target for right-wing censors. In an  e

NOTE: Sung Hee-Choi was arrested in May for protesting the construction of a Navy base in Gangjeong, Jeju Island, South Korea. She was released last month. Here is a link to an interview David Vine conducted with her in July. Below is a statement from her on the struggle from: Ten Thousand Things : The pictures are from my trip to South Korea last summer, for which Sung Hee was my guide. ******************* [Translated by John Cha, Jinsoo An, Jun-Hyung Kim] Final Testimony Case: 2011 고단/Kodan 318 Obstruction of Business (2011 Kodan 511, Combined) The Accused: Choi Sung-hee Your Honor, I, Choi Sung-hee, am a visual artist. I have been drawn to the beauty of Jeju Island, the pearl of Korea, and to the beautiful ecological preservation of Gangjeong village, which has been called the diamond of Jeju Island. I have also been drawn to the friendly spirit of the Gangjeong villagers who live peacefully with nature. Their will to protect and love the natural environment has move

Around this time last year Howard Zinn passed away. He was most famous for his seminal counter history of the United States A People's History of the United States, but he wrote many other works as well and was a long time activist and support of numerous progressive causes. After I began teaching World History last year, I found that much of the way I talk about things, even history, tends to be at a level which is hard for your average UOG undergraduate to understand. When you starting talking like Levinas, Derrida, Benjamin, Slavoj Zizek and Avery Gordon to talk about history even if students are interested, they sometimes lack the vocabulary or a friendly framework to even engage with what I'm saying. The first time I taught World History 2 (from 1500- the present) I made the mistake of giving my students Walter Benjamin's Theses on the Philosophy of History, without prepping them much or giving them an idea of what it was about. Needless to say the discussion was gut