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Tag Archives: American History
Studs Terkel : A People’s Journalist Passes
‘For Studs, listening was a craft, deeply studied and deliberately honed.’By Bruce Shapiro / November 1, 2008 When I was a student in Chicago in the late 1970s, Studs Terkel’s daily radio interview programs on WFMT were my morning seminars. … Continue reading
Posted in RagBlog
Tagged American History, Authors, Deaths, Historians, Journalists, People, Studs Terkel, Writers
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Gore Vidal : John McCain in the Echo Chamber
Gore Vidal in 2007. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.‘Even from the corpse of the Republican Party, which Abraham Lincoln left somewhat hastily in the 19th century, this was an unusually sickening display.’By Gore Vidal October proved to be the cruelest … Continue reading
Posted in RagBlog
Tagged American History, Authors, Gore Vidal, Maury Maverick, McCain Campaign, Presidential Campaign, Republican Party, Texas
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Some Straight Talk on Socialism and Bullshit
The late great American socialist Norman Thomas. Photo courtesy of The Bancroft Library / University of California, Berkeley.‘The Republican vocabulary has always involved mindless terminology, word choices that cause apprehension and fear in the uninformed, such as “socialism.”’By Dr. S. … Continue reading
Posted in Rag Bloggers
Tagged American History, European History, Norman Thomas, Socialism
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The Mob : Did John McCain Play Piano in a Bordello?
‘Perhaps McCain was untainted by the mob and corruption, but one wonders if he could have been that successful had he not somehow made his peace with that situation.’By Sherman De Brosse / The Rag Blog / October 15, 2008 … Continue reading
Posted in Rag Bloggers
Tagged American History, Cindy McCain, McCain, November Election, Organized Crime, Presidential Campaign
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Daniel Ellsberg, Kathleen Cleaver Headline Austin ‘1968’ Conference
History as prologue? 1968 A Global PerspectiveBy Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / October 7, 2008 See more about Daniel Ellsberg, Kathleen Cleaver and the SDS Comic Show Below. Daniel Ellsberg and Kathleen Cleaver headline an interdisciplinary conference being … Continue reading
Posted in Rag Bloggers
Tagged American History, Austin, Black Panthers, Daniel Ellsberg, Graphic History, History, Kathleen Cleaver, MDS, New Left, SDS, Sixties, Texas, The Rag, The Rag Blog, UT-Austin, Vietnam
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Obama and the ‘Weatherman Connection’ : In Defense of Bill Ayers
William Ayers, left, in 1980 with wife, Bernardine Dohrn. Photo by Knoblock, via Associated Press.‘The Bill Ayers I knew in the late 1960’s was a very thoughtful and serious person.’By David P. Hamilton / The Rag Blog / October 6, … Continue reading
Posted in Rag Bloggers
Tagged American History, Bernardine Dohrn, Campaign Tactics, Keating Five, Obama, Obama Smear Campaign, SDS, Sixties, Weather Underground, William Ayers
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Heed H.R. Mencken : Economy Notwithstanding, This Election Not a Sure Thing
H.R. Mencken: Some wisdom worth heeding?‘We face an election currently as did the USA and Germany in 1932’By S.R. Keister / The Rag Blog / September 21, 2008 H.L. Mencken once wrote, “The only way to success in American life … Continue reading
Preserving the Record of Wrong-Doing and Deceit
Vice President Dick Cheney has argued that his office is not part of the executive branch of government. Photo: Filippo Monteforte, AFP / Getty ImagesJudge Orders Cheney to Preserve RecordsBy Pete Yost / September 21, 2008 WASHINGTON — A federal … Continue reading
Singin’ on Sunday: A Fragment of Ragged Beauty
Ragged Beauty: An Alternative to the Operations of PowerBy Chris Floyd / September 19, 2008 Here’s a fragment of ragged beauty — stripped to the bone, tarnished and stolen — etched on the Roman night almost 21 years ago to … Continue reading
Howard Zinn : ‘US Influence Is Declining, Its Power Is Declining’
Howard Zinn is the author of, most notably, A People’s History of the United States, a National-Book-Award-nominated text that investigates US history from the standpoint of the oppressed. Other books by Zinn include Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology and … Continue reading
Posted in RagBlog
Tagged American History, American Society, Electoral politics, Imperialism, Politics
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Ronnie Dugger : LBJ, The Texas Observer and Me
Former Texas Observer editor Ronnie Dugger with President Lyndon Johnson. Photo by Yoichi Yokamoto / Courtesty LBJ Library / Texas Observer.‘None of us knew it yet, but we Americans were about to be trapped in the history that Lyndon Johnson … Continue reading
Posted in RagBlog
Tagged American History, Authors, Democratic Party, Journalism, LBJ, Progressives, Texas, Texas History, Texas Observer, The Presidency
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