POST YOUR SCHOOLWORK. DISCUSS. LEARN SOMETHING!

[weedguru tom]

i dont have to do school anymore i finnished, took A level philosaphy english and double business studies i lerant alot but i fergot it all, have like 10 folders full of work its shit !

[Caro]

I thought you guys might like this one. Sick of the same old pick-up lines? Why not try something from the OT for a little flava. "Baby, your teeth are like pregnant sheep, not sick or thin. Your hair is like a flock of goats charging down the mountain from Gilead. Your breasts are like fawns, your neck an ivory pillar. You are like a palm tree, I would climb the branches and hold onto your clusters".

Seriously, I have enjoyed reading this far more than anything else in Bible class. Some priestly writer knew it was a bunch of BS and just had to throw this chapter in. HA hahahaha.

Caroline -------
English 320
Free Write on the Song of Solomon

The poetry of the Song of Solomon focuses on the physical attributes of the lovers; it is sensual because it suggests sexuality and pleasure in the corporeal as opposed to the spirit or the intellect. Most of the lyrics detail the splendors of looking upon each other’s bodies, while actual gross physical gratification is minimized. This may be due to the fidelity and virginity of the female lover, as implied in 5:12. “You are an enclosed garden, my bride, a fountain sealed”. The focus of the song is not sexual intercourse then, but rather the righteousness of desire, love, and appreciation of physical beauty. The affirmations of virginal burning desire are some of the most sensual: “Rise, north wind? Come, south wind! Blow upon my garden”. This passage is highly erotic.
The statements of the groom are some of the most sweetly romantic passages I have ever encountered, a surprise among the stuffy romantic relationships described in other books of the Old Testament. In particular, verse 5:7 – “You are all-beautiful, my beloved, and there is no blemish in you”. This compliment transcends all traditions, times and locations; issued to any woman by the man she adores would surely make her heart melt. It did mine.
The metaphors used to describe the body are far removed from our culture but obviously very close to the life world of the author and the audience. A modern woman might take offense at her teeth being likened to sheep or her hair to a flock of goats! But one cannot escape the sensuality or the erotic imagery in verses such as 7: 8 -10. “Your very figure is like a palm tree…I will climb the palm tree, I will take hold of its branches. Let your mouth be like an excellent wine that flows smoothly for my lover, spreading over the lips and teeth”.
The image of love that one gets from the Song of Solomon is not that much different than our own, but one we might recognize as lust and physical infatuation. The lovers do not attend to that which is more important than lust: trust, commitment, partnership, compatibility.

[Weedguru Higher]

caro, you're pretty articulate, i admire your graceful writing style, please post more papers!

I think he wants to copy em Caro...lol

[GodHand Kronix]

I'm not actually going to post schoolwork, but my reading class recently did a unit on advertising and commercial promotions, and I saw something strange on a television ad that caught my eye. There's an ad for an SUV...the Durango I think, and a man and his wife are arguing about what car to buy, and they each make their supporting points about the car they want to purchase, then they both say "I did my research," and throw the same pamphlet on the table- the one for the Durango. However, don't you think if they actually did their research they would have learned the points that the other stated, caught them and noticed that they were talking about the same car long before showing each other their pamphlets?

I don't know if that makes sense to anyone, just a little something I noticed.

[Caro]

ha ha. Why not, Dr. Reef? I want people to post their schoolwork.


Caroline -------
English 320
Free Write on Daniel


I must know exactly how Daniel felt when thrown into the lion's den. The king did not really want to condemn him, just as my own parents probably didn't want to condemn be to being a junky. But their own lack of judgment, like the king's, allowed for them to sign my death warrant when they encouraged me (by example and provision) to become addicted to hard drugs at sixteen years old. Like Daniel, I was innocent, and like Daniel, I was put in a situation with virtually no hope of escape. How did he feel when the boulder was placed over the entrance, locking him in to certain death? Probably the same way I felt after being awake for five days, lying on the floor of my bedroom, dying of addiction and malnutrition. But Daniel had faith in God; he knew that God would save him from being unjustly punished. I prayed to God to give me strength, to help me out of my lion's den. I thought He couldn't hear me when the last thing that gave me stability- having a roof over my head- was taken away from me and I found myself utterly alone, ruined and homeless. But God did care for me, and God did hear me. He knew what it would take to save me, and orchestrated a series of overwhelming, devastating losses to invest rational sense and strength in me. God healed me overnight, and it was as miraculous as David being pulled out of the lion's den unscathed. I quit hard drugs and cigarettes too on the same day; I began to put my life back together, got an apartment, and went back to school. Drug addiction was like a lion's den, and I watched the lions rip other people to pieces before they even reached the bottom of the pit as I had. Daniel's deliverance was different than mine only in that he already had faith in God; I developed faith as a result of surviving Job-like trials.

[Weedguru Sensei]

The Roaring Twenties

What contributed to the roaring twenties? In my opinion, the following two facts greatly pushed the economical and residential boom. One being urbanization, the movement from somewhat un-urbanized economy and civilization, to a rapidly expanding Canada. Two, being the media - It's advertisements, the way they affected Canadians, almost pushing them into a spending frenzy.

Urbanization, it was obviously present in the 1920's. After World War 1 had come to a close, Canada's economy was booming at full power due to the fact it supploed ever so much to the war effort. Canada infact had produced more shells then any other Country in the world. This "boom" effected the cities of Canada and caused them to grow. Toronto now rivaled the great Montreal in size, and Winnipeg closed in as Canada's third largest city. Farmers triumphed by providing food to the ever expanding population.
Another fact about the expansion, is that the Government now imposed tariff rates. This mean tthat there would be raised taxes on products not being manufactured in Canada. The Government also contributed by increasing the cost of freight rates.
Due to the fact that Canada's urban culture was expanding, new facilites had to be imposed. By the mid twenties, the Government had to supply hydro, electricity, sewege, and transit for the 500,000 people now living in Toronto. New roads for transport and traveling, along with new aircraft for mail, freight and transport were constructed.

Another great factor in answering the question - "Why did the twenties roar," is the amount of media advertisements and products. As the early 1920's progressed, most Canadians had full time jobs that were much more secure then previous years. Better wages meant more spending money to Canadian families. A carpenter in the 1920's made $34.60 a month, easily supporting a mid size family. This "extra" revenue sparked the mass advertisement of many products. Advertisements could be found in flyers, catalogues, billboards, and product packaging.
Advertisers goal was obviously to contribute to the sale of a product. They did this by making luxury items look essential to the every day working man. One notorious company was the T. Eaton Company. They offered many variaties of products with a monthly pay plan. In 1923, the model T was introduced for the affordable price of $445, making it the first automobile to be mass produced. By 1929, a large percent of families owned a car. 300% more cars were owned then in 1919.

In conclusion, I would like to verify why these 2 subjects contributed to the boom in the 1920's. Firstly, urbanization helped Canada grow to be a massivly expanding country, immegrants flocked to Canada by the thousands, and most were now able to find jobs in factories. I will also conclude that media advertisements and products contributed to the boom by bringing in mass revenue, and allowing Canadian people as a society, to be more independant from inporting. Businesses triumphed, bringing Canada's economy far above their standards. The 1920's were a very profitable time by all standards, economically, socially, and politically.



-We had 40 minuites to write that, and I thought I did pretty damn good, apparently, my history teacher didnt, I got like a 65%. Lousy drunk, he comes in every morning with a mug of tea with liquor in it. I hope he gets fired.

[Caro]

Wow, I started reading that, and then I realised it was about Canada.

I'd be interested in seeing how else Canadian hsitory paralells US history. Wait, no I wouldnt!

[Midnight Toker]

I would post something up, but i don't do essays on the computer. They don't flow as well in front of a screen for me i dunno why. If i ever do though, i'll put it up. £20 says you are blown away at my outstanding wit and intelligence

[LiGhTuP]

I did this introduction to an essay on da Wind in the Willows about an hour ago. Only took 5 minutes, but it'll do.

“The Wind in the Willows” is a classic children’s novel, written by colonial author Kenneth Grahame. The books inspiration was derived from forms of nature and the setting of the English countryside. He idolized it, because it reflected his alienation from society and his own life circumstances. From this idolization, his writing seems to immortalize his own nature in his animal protagonists.

However, these animals are unique in that they all possess human intelligence, speech and mannerisms. By creating bond between us and animals in the novel, Grahame attempts to take us on an inner journey, by suspending reality, which perplexes us to delving into the reality of the book.

[Caro]

Caroline -------
Dr. ------------
English 480
November 20, 2003

Application of Orality Theory to Freestyle Hip-Hop

The theory of orality and literacy as developed by Walter J. Ong changed the way we view human cognition. This paper will discuss the way in which Ongian theory applies to the contemporary art form that is rap poetry. It will consider secondary orality, the emergence of hip-hop as a residually oral culture, and finally prove the thesis on an examination of points which link the ancient bard to the modern-day freestyle lyricist.
Orality theory may be described as the study of methodologies used to present information orally. The focus of orality theory is on pre-literate cultures, that is, those people who have no suspicion of writing. Walter Ong set the foundation for scholarly work on orality and literacy, and how the paradigm shift changed human consciousness and methods of narrative composition. As he points out in his book Orality and Literacy, we are now in the age of “secondary orality”. This is a new era – one shaped by and dependant on new technologies that are themselves dependant on literacy. Our understanding of contemporary forms of non-literary expressions can be furthered by studying them within the context of orality and literacy.
Professor Robert Fowler describes how media has brought us from literacy back to orality in his essay How the Secondary Orality of the Electronic Age Can Awaken Us to the Primary Orality of Antiquity. “Secondary oral cultures are literate cultures, such as our own, that have been rendered significantly oral/aural once again by the appearance of dominant new electronic communication media, such as television, telephone, video and audio recording ” (Fowler). The emergence of audio technology in particular has allowed for the publication of poetry as a spontaneous oral art form once again, after being dominated by literacy for centuries.
The bards of ancient Greece and first millennium Europe served their culture in multi-dimensional ways. The Encyclopedia Britannica describes a bard as a tribal poet gifted in composing and reciting verses on heroes and their deeds. Not only were they lyric poets, capable of spontaneously creating spoken works of art, they were living historians who conveyed a sense of cultural identity to their audiences. How might these figures be represented in modern-day literate society, a society where our histories are kept on paper?
The bard is alive, and he is in the hip-hop clubs downtown. Hip-hop as an oral art form has striking similarities to the performances delivered in pre-literate times. Many of the methodologies employed by ancient bards are still in use by modern freestyle rappers. This paper will show how Walter Ong’s theory of orality applies to hip-hop, a poetic art form entrenched in and shaped by orality and literacy. Furthermore, this paper will make a distinction between spontaneous, orally composed rap lyrics and rap composed with aids of permanence, and prove that the emergence of freestyle hip-hop as an oral poetry performance genre is dependant on oral composition methods developed thousands of years ago by purely oral cultures.
The freestyle rap lyricist is easily numbered among the modern-day bards. By the term “bard” Robert Foley expands the conventional image of an ancient, oral poet/storyteller/historian and designates “not only the highly romanticized epic poet in oral performance… but a much larger and more heterogeneous cadré of artists. Included are performers of epic among present-day cultures but also their fellow wordsmiths around the world who work in a myriad of other genres” (Foley 93).
Foley gives particular insight into the issue of secondary orality in discussing his idea of the present-day bard. “…the reality of the situation, as derived from evidence submitted from societies worldwide, is that oral traditions are often practiced by functionally literate people who somehow can manage a variety of verbal activities, and that the idioms that constitute oral traditions are in fact ‘carried over’ to transcriptions and to authored text” (Foley 96). The idioms that constitute oral tradition are very much present in permanent (recorded or transcripted) hip-hop. Although invented in the age of high literacy, hip-hop has oral origins and even in evolution and permanence, it is an art form with strong oral residue.
Rap was born in 1974 in the South Bronx. Eric Perkins alludes to the technological vehicles of secondary orality concerning hip-hop – the record (beats) and the microphone (lyrics) in his introductory essay, “The Rap Attack”. He quotes Bambaata, one of the earliest rap DJs. “You could take a 30-second portion of a record and keep it going…then came the rappers who just talked regularly over the music…when the rhyming started, that’s when everybody started boasting about themselves, the flyest girls, and how many girls you could get in one night” (Perkins 10). This essentially describes the birth of spontaneous spoken lyrics in the rap style. With the element of rhyme and competition, we see our first connections to the oral bards. “The MC developed a basic lyrical style, mixing elements of street jargon and slang, personal experience, and an occasional dose of humor to create a potpourri of simple verses that could function both as a match and a counterpoint to the DJ…” (Perkins 10). While oral bards didn’t have accompanying audio support, the use of gesture, rhythm and narrative are common ground between bards and lyricists.
As hip-hop developed into a unique musical genre, with its own audience, the drive to market it necessitated audio recording of the tracks MCs and DJs created. With this shift in the desired outcome came a shift in the production methods. Rapping was no longer just spontaneous entertainment but recorded, permanent entertainment.
There are two technologies that changed methods of rap composition: audio recording and writing. Both transform the poetry into an art form that while still oral/aural is fundamentally altered and expanded by the advantages of permanence. The act of capturing rap lyrics, via recording, mirrors the paradigm shift from orality to literacy. Here we have an art form that is primarily oral/aural, an event situated in time. Lyrics spoken over a beat virtually disappear after they are uttered. Recording and writing rap lyrics ultimately changes the way rappers create, because making lyrics permanent allows for analyzation and re-working.
There is an important distinction between rap lyrics that are composed with the aid of writing and/or recording versus rap produced in the original composition method, known as freestyling. In the tradition of the original rappers who pioneered hip hop, freestylers compose their rap poetry orally and spontaneously, without the aid of pre-written lyrics. Like the ancient bards, freestylers posses the unique ability of entertaining by fitting their words into tight metrical schemes on the spot. It is not a talent that anyone can possess. One must be an acute speaker with rhetorical and poetic skills that surpass the average literate person by far.
How do they do it? Oral bards of ancient times relied on many mnemonic devices and internal composition aids to stitch together their narratives and information. Many of these methods are still employed by freestylers today. First we must attend to an understanding of what it is that rappers (freestyle or otherwise) do.
Rap lyrics are based on dialectical signifying (Potter 91). Signifying in the context of rap composition means to make clever plays on words. Dialectical refers to the philosophic nature of creating poetry: poetry attends to questions that are important to the human existence. Rap poetry is no different. It addresses issues that are important to the composers and the audience while offering an often advanced use of poetic language. There are definable, characteristic rhetorical strategies of signifying in hip-hop lyrics.
The most often used, indeed, a staple for poets of any kind, is the metaphor. As much as 50% of rap lyrics can be composed of metaphors. Often different metaphors are strung together to make the same point. As in all poetry, the skill with which the vehicle is related to the tenor determines the overall aesthetic quality of what is being put forth. Rap lyricists make wide use of metaphors. In an example by the MC Slug in the track “God Loves Ugly”, the MC develops a metaphor to be re-visited later in the song. This type of re-summoning of a metaphor suggests written composition.
I live life like the captain of a sinking ship…I held on to the sacred ways of how to play the game/ When the soldiers started runnin’ short on rations / I began tappin’ the egg, to spark the hatchin’, make it happen / And take this captain to the gallows / I keep steerin’ us into an area that is shallow / Talkin’ to my shadow, he advised me not to worry.

In his book Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Post-Modernism, Russell Potter states that “signifying accounts for and sets into play the mistaking of meaning” (Potter 83). Another rhetorical strategy often used for signifying which supports this claim is the use of what he calls “homophonic slippage”. This is a strategy often used to move or ‘flow’ from one idea to the next, and involves making a trope on words that sound alike. A type of near rhyming from the end of one lyric to the next, usually involving words that don’t perfectly rhyme, it advances the narrative or thesis. This is a purely oral rhetorical strategy – near-rhymes are not embedded within perfect rhymes in the poetry of high literacy. Homophonic slippage is demonstrated here in the Grouch and Eligh lyrics: “I eat, breathe and sleep the shit to keep fit / Didn't really like to study but the music brought wit”. Additional rhetorical strategies for composing rap lyrics include metonymy, alliteration, assonance, rhyme scheme, and other poetic devices.
These strategies have been put to use by literate poets for centuries. A literate poet rapper who puts down the pen and creates spontaneous oral poetry is recalling to action an outdated and evolved method of cognition. Potter describes with clarity the linguistic genius with which oral rappers operate in quick succession.
If the unfolding of language over time is thought of as a horizontal strip, at each syntactical moment a vast range of possibilities is vertically “stacked”. One can spin the wheel of grammatically and logically possible terms (e.g. “the cat sat on the: mat, car, tree, grass, chair”) and/or the wheel of sounds (“the cat sat on the mat, the rat, the hat,” etc); the trick of signifying is to do both at once, to find homonymic connections that serve either to undermine, parody, or connect in a surprising way the underlying connotations of [vernacular] language. (Potter 83).

He reminds us of the importance of considering African-American culture and the unique vernacular that frames hip-hop. Vernacular is not literature, it is the spoken language, it is the colloquialisms, slang, vocabulary and patterns of speech specific to a people, like a dialect. The black way of speaking influenced and continues to influence hip-hop even as its practitioners have transcended racial [and language] boundaries. “There remains an element of the accidental, the unknown with hip-hop that situates it as a singularly vernacular art form. Hip-hop, like jazz, is fundamentally improvisatory” (Potter 72).
The distinction, then, between freestyle rapping and composing written lyrics beforehand is as significant as the difference between orality and literacy itself. Writing takes the oral poet out of the restraint of time, which is perhaps the greatest aid to a literate mind trying to function on an oral level. When asked what differences sixteen-year old amateur rapper Tyson Hedges noticed between his own spontaneous freestyle lyrics and written, pre-composed lyrics, he said that “writing unlocks my vocabulary. If I’m sitting there, writing things out, I have a lot more time to search for words, and I am able to combine words in more complex ways. I can even look at what I’ve written and change it, which is something I can never do when I’m just rapping off the top of my head. Once it’s said, it’s said”.
The freestyle rapper faces a difficulty – the same difficulty, no doubt, that ancient bards faced – in composing any length of stream of consciousness poetry or narrative in an immediate, time-restricted setting. One can imagine the poet bards internally composing their thoughts, structuring what they were going to say well before the actual performance. In primarily oral cultures as well as in the secondary oral culture as it applies to this subject, the mind is the mnemonic device. An anonymous freestyler describes the internal/oral composition process for him: “I usually try and freestyle at the top of my voice in my car on the way there. I just mumble rubbish until I get one sentence that rhymes. Once I have that one sentence, I make another which relates to the first sentence. After that, I sort of have the foundations for the rest of the freestyle and it becomes a lot easier after the first few lines”.
The bards who performed the Iliad worked from a supply of pre-fabricated phrases. As opposed to creating something original and new in the literate sense, they were rather creating a new way of stitching the phrases together when telling an oral story. While the freestyle rapper is doing something a little different, both use phrases that they have developed (either internally or borrowed from another source) beforehand in their performances.
“Redundancy characterizes oral thought and speech” (Ong 40). Ongian theory asserts that there are several reasons why an oral poet or speaker would be prone to repeating themselves. Written words are “time-obviating” – that is, by making the words permanent, they can be recalled by visually scanning for them on the page. “Thought requires some sort of continuity. Writing establishes in the text a ‘line’ of continuity outside the mind…in oral discourse, there is nothing to [refer] to outside the mind…hence the mind must move ahead more slowly, keeping close to the focus of attention much of what it has already dealt with” (Ong 40).
Freestyle rappers, like ancient bards, use repetition as an aid to continual thought. In observing Tyson Hedges freestyle, it was noticed that between composing new information, he would often repeat the same “base” rhymes. This served him in the same way that it would serve an oral bard; to work out in his mind what he was going to say next without causing a stop or hesitation in the flow of words. “In oral delivery, although a pause may be effective, hesitation is always disabling. Hence it is better to repeat something, artfully if possible, rather than to stop speaking while fishing for the next idea” (Ong 40). Josh Niva, a news editor, comments on the consequences of hesitation: “Even worse, when an MC loses track of his thoughts or falls silent, the crowd reacts with chants of ‘CHOKE’!” (Niva E1).
Just as ancient bards were always concerned with their audience (and neither is freestyling a solo activity), hip-hop is a communal art. The role of the audience is crucial to “maintaining a continuity of reception” (Foley 102). The medium of sound instantly puts the audience in a situation restricted by time: listening to the lyrics of a rapper together unifies the listeners. In response to Ong’s essay “The Writer’s Audience is Always a Fiction”, Foley writes: “It is of course the bard that must achieve that level of fluency in the traditional idiom, but it is also equally his or her audience, who is always more than a fiction” (Foley 98). A bad rapper would no more be accepted by his audience than an untalented bard would!
Hip-hop and freestyle in particular attends to a specific audience that the rappers are always aware of. Hip-hop is an attitude. “…It’s not a matter of the scales, beats, or words one is singing, but of their delivery, their attack, their movement from and back into the material life and cultures of [the listeners]. The best raps are ‘rhymes that can blare out of a jeep, rhymes that drop knowledge that is relevant to kids in the hood’” (Potter 71).
Freestyle lyricists, like bards, do not distance themselves very far from the human lifeworld. This is not because they can’t – most if not all rappers are literate and do include complex abstractions in their songs. Even when utilizing the capability of abstraction, it is usually to express a metaphor that relates back to the tangible world of the rapper. The spontaneous oral poet living in the electronic age is also exposed to a far greater range of realities and concepts via the media than a bard in a primary oral culture would have been, so that the lifeworld of the rapper does not limit the content of his song. Even so, most rap is devoted to telling it how it is from the rapper’s perspective. The most common subjects for rap lyrics and narratives are taken directly from the hip-hop lifestyle.
Perhaps the most compelling justification for presenting the freestyle lyricist as a modern-day bard lies within the tone with which both bards and lyricists present their work. “Many oral or residually oral cultures strike literates as extraordinarily agonistic in their verbal performance and indeed in their lifestyle” (Ong 43). Professor Fowler discusses Ong’s position on the agonistic tone in secondary orality and how it specifically applies to hip-hop:
Ong observes that primary oral cultures often evidence wars of words, such as riddle or song contests, name-calling, and bragging…Curiously, Ong claims that in secondary orality, the agonistic tendency of oral speech remains subdued, a carry-over from print culture: ‘Electronic media do not tolerate a show of open antagonism’ (Ong, 137). However, I do not think Ong's claim holds for many other forms of electronic communication. Think of the contemporary, urban, oral tradition of ‘hip-hop’ or ‘rap,’ in which we witness a revival of an oral, formulaic, bardic tradition, with a sharp, sometimes vicious verbal edge (Fowler).

Editor Josh Niva summarizes the agonistic tone that informs the hip-hop style, as freestyling is most commonly performed in a battle-like setting.
Freestyle rap battles are lyrical boxing matches pitting MCs in a one-on-one duel to the death. In competitions, the battle starts when a DJ plays a random instrumental. MCs take turns rhyming to the beat, flexing their versatility and rhyming skill while taking shots at one another in an attempt to win the favor of judges or a crowd. The battles are pressurized, and the competition is heated and vicious. The rules are typically no-holds-barred, so MCs jab with personal attacks that range from rude to offensive. No topic is out of line: style, physical attributes, sexual orientation or race. Bold MCs add physical intimidation, rapping loudly in the face of their opponent (Niva E1).


This is the true form of hip-hop as an oral poetry performance genre. It is an impermanent, oral/aural activity performed by talented lyricists. In its raw form, hip-hop is performed in houses, on street corners, and in the clubs downtown. Making rap lyrics permanent changes the composition methods and outcomes. The effects of permanence (audio recording and writing) take our modern-day bard and put him squarely back in the world of literacy; but for Tyson Hedges, the flows will continue to be produced internally, rapped over a beat.

Bibliography

Brown, Fahamisha Patricia. Performing the word: African-American Poetry as Vernacular Culture. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1999.

Foley, John Miles. “The Bard’s audience is Always More Than a Fiction”. Time, Memory, and the Verbal Arts: Essays on the Thought of Walter Ong. Weeks, Dennis L. ed. London, England: associated University Pressses, 1998.

Fowler, Robert M. “How the Secondary Orality of the Electronic Age
Can Awaken Us to the Primary Orality of Antiquity”. http://homepages.bw.edu/~rfowler/pubs/secondoral

George, Nelson. Hip-Hop America. New York: Viking, 1998.

Hedges, Tyson. Personal Interview. November 1, 2003.

Niva, Josh. “Battle Stars; Two Rappers Bet Their Reputations in a Fight of Wit and Rhymes”. Editorial. Anchorage Daily News 27 September 2003, E1.

Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy. London: Routlege, 1988.

Perkins, Eric William, ed. Droppin’ Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996.

Potter, Russell A. Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Post-Modernism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.

[GodHand Kronix]

LOOOONG as hell, but nicely done. I wish I was that good at writing.

[lawnmowerman]

hERE IS ONE i THINK MY tEACH WAS HITTING THE GONJA BEFORE READING THIS ONE CAN YOU FIND THE MISTAKES?????



Deciduous & Flowering Trees
ACERACEAE: The Maple Family 1




By LAWN MOWER MAN
Horticulture 160
Nov 2003




One generation plants the trees under which another takes its ease," Chinese proverb.2

Horticultural Important Genera: The Aceraceae family is made up of 120-150 species3 Of small to large deciduous and evergreen4 Trees, shrubs and vines;5of northern temperate regions. There are only two genera; Acer, and Dipteronia.6 The Acer species are divided into two groups: hard and soft.7 The Following are the more horticultural important genera Acer campestre: Acer ginnala, Acer griseum, Acer negundo, Acer nigrum, Acer palmatum, Acer platanoides, Acer rubrum, Acer saccharum Acer saccharinum, Acer spicatum.8
Acer saccharum is the most common hard maple, the most commercially important and the most abundant type in the U.S. for syrup and sugar.9
Acer saccharinum, Acer redrum and Acer negundo are the most common soft maple species.10 Among the many uses of maple wood are charcoal production, railroad ties, veneer, plywood, bowling pins, furniture, boxes, crates, pallets, mill products, sporting and athletic goods, musical instruments, and butcher's blocks11

Stem: maple is heavy, hard, strong, and close grained wood. Hard Maple: Tends to have cream to white sapwood and light reddish brown heart stock, usually straight grained. Soft Maple: tends to be very similar to hard maple but much lighter in density. The sapwood is wide and white in color, while the heartwood is generally light brown with a cast that is gray, green, or purple. hard maple is sorted by color, Soft maple is not. Aceraceae can grow tall with relatively large diameters12 Aceraceae have light to dark Grey brown, 13 gray-black,14 or red brown Bark some have exfoliating bark as they age.15 Acer griseum for example has cinnamon brown bark that peels with age.16 Aceraceae can be a multi stemmed shrub or a more common tree shape, and shrubs can be pruned into a desired shape. the Stems tend to be fine at the tip to stout branches at the base.17glabrous and lenticeled all along the stem.18 The branches grow in opposite pairs.19 stems color is, olive brown to reddish-brown in color ; leaf scars meet to form a sharp angle; older stems gray-brown; pith is solid white, rough and striped on older branches.20

leaf: leaves are opposite, deciduous, or rarely evergreen. 21 palmately lobed, simple, sometimes compound, 22 or trifoliate.23 highly variable in shape: entire or deeply toothed, unlobed or deeply lobed. foliage color is dark-green to blue-green above, lighter green and pubescent below.25one of best trees for fall color, but color varies with planting location and age and stress level of tree.24 many cultivars have reddish leaves, leaves tend to change in the fall around late October to early November.26 color variations may include orange, red, red-green to reddish-purple in color. Acer rubrum is a example of the bright brilliant yellow, orange, red; or purple in fall. Aceraceae generally has an upright oval canopy, but can be wide, pyramidal to rounded habit in open areas. 27


floret :The flowers of Aceraceae have five free sepals and five free petals. 28
the Petals usually are smaller than the sepals, or are lacking entirely. The florets are corymbase to paniculate, usually regular, may be perfect or imperfect, generally with a lobed disc between the stamens and the pistil, or the disc extrastaminal, and are distinct to basally connate. 30

Inflorescence: Aceraceae flowers in the late winter to early spring. in a variety of inflorescences including, Clusters, racemes and panicles, corymbs, peduncles, and unisexual31 Flowers. they can be described as few, green, yellow or white. Aceraceae florets are rarely fragrent.32

Fruit seed or sexually reproducing organ Aceraceae are andromonoecious or androdioecious. The male and bisexual flowers have 4-10 stamens, normally eight, a rudimentary pistil is usually present in the staminate flowers; pistil 1, style 1 or 2, stigmas usually 2, ovary superior.33 The seeds are solitary and without endosperm.34The paired fruits are called samaras, each with a membranous wing. the two halves tardily separate.35 with a 90, to 180 degree spread. They are parallel, red to brown in color seeding by aid of the wind from June to October, and the seeds can be steril.36

Soil and roots: Aceraceae grows well from zone 3 to 8. it is Adaptable to rich38 , well-drained soils, compacted soils, dry soils, and any other natural ecotypes cultivars are ideal for almost any soil situation from high organic matter soil, to pH extremes.39 most are air pollution tolerant.40 Strong free growing shallow rooted.41 commonly propagated Balled and bur lapped. 42

Native habitat :Of the 150 known species of Aceraceae, only 13 are native to North America. all grow across North America, and on both coasts. 42
four of the Aceraceaes are native to the western states only. eight are native to the eastern and southern states. one, Acer negundo, is found from Montreal to southern California. 43some consider it a weed. Acer saccharinum and Acer rubrum are hardwood trees ranging from eastern Canada, south to Florida, and west to Minnesota and Texas.46 Acer saccharum is a hardwood tree inhabiting Canada and the United States from Newfoundland to South Dakota and south to Texas and Georgia.49 Acer campestres Native habitat is in Europe, and east Africa. Introduced in to the u.s. in colonial times.47 Acer ginnala is a Native of central and northern china Manchuria Japan introduced 186048 Acer griseum is also of central china and lastly in the genius Dipteronia which consists of only two large, deciduous shrubs found wild in central and southern China.44 they Known only to live in Mengzi or Wenshan in the south-east of Yunnan. It is a prized ornamental plant and just two species in the genus. The species occurs at the edges of broadleaved evergreen forest between 1800 and 2400m. The habitat has declined in extent because of logging and clearing for agriculture. The area is now under protection. 45


Folklore: Acer means hard or sharp in Latin, somewhat appropriate for many of the family members.50 Many Aceraceae are grown for ornamental purposes, and are prized for their beautiful foliage and spectacular autumn colors. Many species produce good timber, and some other species yield maple sugar. The pioneers used its ashes to make soap.51 The Potawatomi use Aceraceae leaves as a pattern for their bead and appliqué work. The leaves of the maple make a favorite design for their bead work and they were in the habit of using the leaves and flowers for valued dress and for medicine; as well as food. In making up a design for art work or bead work, the Potawatomi would burn deer antlers until they turned to charcoal and use this to rub on the backs of the leaves. This surface was placed down upon a piece of white birch bark and rubbed until the shape and venation of the leaves were transferred to the birch bark. a design would be formed which would be the pattern for the bead work. Oftentimes this would be placed directly under the loom so that the form and outline of the finished beadwork would be a true representation of the natural object.54
The maple leaf today appears on the penny. However, between 1876 and 1901, it appeared on all Canadian coins. The modern one-cent piece has two maple leaves on a common twig, a design that has gone almost unchanged since 1937.52 Since 1965, the maple leaf has been the centerpiece of the National Flag of Canada and the maple tree bears the leaves that have become the most prominent Canadian symbol, nationally and internationally. Maple leaf pins and badges are proudly worn by Canadians abroad, and are recognized around the world.
Because of its rapid growth, and silver maple is now banned in many communities because of problems with the growth patterns. Mature trees can become quite large and they will break up easily in stormy weather, presenting a damage hazard in cities where the trees are in close proximity to buildings, people, and automobiles.53 according to Alsatian folklore in order to avoid the eggs of the stork from being disturbed by a bat or even being killed whilst still in their shells, placing branches of the Maple would ensure protection against the bat. In fact planting a branch of the Maple tree in a house was said to ensure that bats will not dare to enter. 55
Acer saccharum. is considered as medicinal and food use. " because Aceraceae all types of seasoning material. All of pioneer cooking was seasoned with maple sugar in lieu of salt. While we use salt more today for this purpose, it is still a common ingredient.

Urban Tolerance: Handsome trees with the only limitations found in select species; such as inadequate adaptability to high P.H. soils, dry soils and dislike of wind swept areas. some with stand heavy pruning such as Acer campestre and ginnala. most with stand full sun and pollution; a few prefer hidden sites like the Japanese maple. in the landscape Acers may be over used and it is believed to be the most popular tree.56



Kingdom -Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Super division spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass rosidae –
Ordersapindales –
Family Aceraceae – Maple family
Genus acre – maple 57
 a b c d e f

g h

a b flora.huh.harvard.edu/china/ images/boufford/db-009.jpg
c www.life.uiuc.edu/plantbio/digitalflowers/ Aceraceae/2.htm
d courses.washington.edu/.../ Aceraceae/aceraceae.html
e www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/ b-online/e51/51l.htm
f www.forestry.auburn.edu/.../ aceraceae/r_maple%20L2.jpg
[ g bissells.com/eric/bearbook
h http://images.google.com/images?q=mount ... TF-8&hl=en










Hortus third: a concise dictionary of plants cultivated in the united states and Canada. New york; Macmillan 1976,65



1 http://www.edgehill.net/species.htm
2http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/trees/index.html
3Manual of landscape woody plants their identification,ornimental characteristics culture propogation and uses fifth edition Michael dirr 1975, 77, 83 ,90, 98
4http://www.botany.com/dipteronia.html
5http://www.canadafirst.net/maple_leaf_forever/
6http://www.botany.com/dipteronia.html
7.http://www.thewoodbox.com/data/wood/mapleinfo.htm
8http://courses.smsu.edu/pab532f/DeciduousTrees_363.htm
9 Hortus third: a consice dictionary of plants cultivated in the united states and Canada. New york; Macmillan 1976,65
10 http://www.thewoodbox.com/data/wood/mapleinfo.htm
11http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/trees/pages/sugarmaple.html
12 .http://www.thewoodbox.com/data/wood/mapleinfo.htm
13 Manual of landscape woody plants their identification,ornimental characteristics culture propogation and uses fifth edition Michael dirr 1975, 77, 83 ,90, 98
14 http://courses.smsu.edu/pab532f/DeciduousTrees_363.htm
15 Manual of landscape woody plants their identification,ornimental characteristics culture propogation and uses fifth edition Michael dirr 1975, 77, 83 ,90, 98
16 http://courses.smsu.edu/pab532f/DeciduousTrees_363.htm
17Manual of landscape woody plants their identification,ornimental characteristics culture propogation and uses fifth edition Michael dirr 1975, 77, 83 ,90, 98
18Manual of landscape woody plants their identification,ornimental characteristics culture propogation and uses fifth edition Michael dirr 1975, 77, 83 ,90, 98
19 Hitchcock, C. Leo; Cronquist, Arthur; Ownbey, Marion; Thompon, J.W. Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest, Part 1, University of Washington Press, 1994
20 http://courses.smsu.edu/pab532f/DeciduousTrees_363.htm
21 http://www.botany.com/dipteronia.html
22Hortus third: a consice dictionary of plants cultivated in the united states and Canada. New york; Macmillan 1976,65
23 Manual of landscape woody plants their identification,ornimental characteristics culture propogation and uses fifth edition Michael dirr 1975, 77, 83 ,90, 98
24 Hitchcock, C. Leo; Cronquist, Arthur; Ownbey, Marion; Thompon, J.W. Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest, Part 1, University of Washington Press, 1994 http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/robson ... s/Acer.htm
25 http://courses.smsu.edu/pab532f/DeciduousTrees_363.htm
26 Manual of landscape woody plants their identification,ornimental characteristics culture propogation and uses fifth edition Michael dirr 1975, 77, 83 ,90,
27 http://courses.smsu.edu/pab532f/DeciduousTrees_363.htm
28Hitchcock, C. Leo; Cronquist, Arthur; Ownbey, Marion; Thompon, J.W. Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest, Part 1,
University of Washington Press, 1994 http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/robson ... s/Acer.htm
30 Hortus third: a consice dictionary of plants cultivated in the united states and Canada. New york; Macmillan 1976,65
31Manual of landscape woody plants their identification,ornimental characteristics culture propogation and uses fifth edition Michael dirr 1975, 77, 83 ,90, 98
32 Hitchcock, C. Leo; Cronquist, Arthur; Ownbey, Marion; Thompon, J.W. Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest, Part 1,
University of Washington Press, 1994 http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/robson ... s/Acer.htm
33 Hitchcock, C. Leo; Cronquist, Arthur; Ownbey, Marion; Thompon, J.W. Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest, Part 1,
University of Washington Press, 1994 http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/robson ... s/Acer.htm
34 Keller, A. C., Acer glabrum and its varieties. Am. Midi. Nat. 27:491-500. 1842. http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/robson ... s/Acer.htm
35
Manual of landscape woody plants their identification,ornimental characteristics culture propogation and uses fifth edition Michael dirr 1975, 77, 83 ,90, 98
36 Keller, A. C., Acer glabrum and its varieties. Am. Midi. Nat. 27:491-500. 1842
37 Hitchcock, C. Leo; Cronquist, Arthur; Ownbey, Marion; Thompon, J.W. Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest, Part 1,
University of Washington Press, 1994 http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/robson ... s/Acer.htm
38 Manual of landscape woody plants their identification,ornimental characteristics culture propogation and uses fifth edition Michael dirr 1975, 77, 83 ,90, 98
39 http://courses.smsu.edu/pab532f/DeciduousTrees_363.htm
40 Manual of landscape woody plants their identification,ornimental characteristics culture propogation and uses fifth edition Michael dirr 1975, 77, 83 ,90, 98
41 Hortus third: a consice dictionary of plants cultivated in the united states and Canada. New york; Macmillan 1976,65
42 Manual of landscape woody plants their identification,ornimental characteristics culture propogation and uses fifth edition Michael dirr 1975, 77, 83 ,90, http://courses.smsu.edu/pab532f/DeciduousTrees_363.htm
42
http://www.thewoodbox.com/data/wood/mapleinfo.htm
43
http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/robson ... s/Acer.htm
44
http://www.botany.com/dipteronia.html
45National Environment Protection Bureau. 1987. The list of rare and endangered plants protected in China. Botanical Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academy Press, Beijing http://www.redlist.org/search/details.php?species=32340
46
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/trees/pages ... maple.html
47 Manual of landscape woody plants their identification,ornimental characteristics culture propogation and uses fifth edition Michael dirr 1975, 77, 83 ,90, 98
48
Manual of landscape woody plants their identification,ornimental characteristics culture propogation and uses fifth edition Michael dirr 1975, 77, 83 ,90, 98
49 http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/trees/pages/sugarmaple.html

50 .http://www.thewoodbox.com/data/wood/mapleinfo.htm
http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/robson ... s/Acer.htm
51 Brunt, A.A., Crabtree, K., Dallwitz, M.J., Gibbs, A.J., Watson, L. and Zurcher, E.J. (eds.) (1996 http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/robson ... s/Acer.htm
http://www.canadafirst.net/maple_leaf_forever/
52
http://www.north-america.de/index2.htm?icanada4.htm&2
53
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/trees/pages ... maple.html
54
http://www.manataka.org/page54.html
55
http://www.mystical-www.co.uk/trees/treesm.htm#MAPLE
56 http://www.manataka.org/page54.html
57 # HYPERLINK "http://plants.usda.gov/cgi_bin/plant_pr ... ymbol=ACPL"# HYPERLINK "http://plants.usda.gov/cgi_bin/plant_pr ... ymbol=ACPL"# HYPERLINK "http://plants.usda.gov/cgi_bin/plant_pr ... ymbol=ACPL"# HYPERLINK "http://plants.usda.gov/cgi_bin/plant_pr ... ymbol=ACPL
58Brunt, A.A., Crabtree, K., Dallwitz, M.J., Gibbs, A.J., Watson, L. and Zurcher, E.J. (eds.) (1996 http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/robson ... s/Acer.htm
http://www.canadafirst.net/maple_leaf_forever/

[lawnmowerman]

AND STILL GOT A 150 PTS OUT OF 150 PTS

[Caro]

Nice!

Caroline -------
History 231


Zinn's Vietnam: an Exegesis

(Otherwise known as the ten page paper that was completed in two days even though I had two weeks to do it )

In the chapter “The Impossible Victory: Vietnam” of Howard Zinn’s book A People’s History of the United States, the author puts forth in the first paragraph two statements or theses that the rest of the chapter sets out to prove with documented evidence. The first is that the war of Vietnam was a war of superior technology versus organized human will, in which superior technology failed to win. The second is that the great antiwar movement in the United States was critical to bringing and end to the war.
This paper is concerned primarily with the first half of the chapter: Zinn’s interpretation of and judgment of US involvement in Vietnam. Although his opening statement and concluding statement reflect neutrality – by stating the obvious – the evidence he sites as well as the tone of the chapter indicate a clear position: Zinn is skeptical of the necessity of the war and believes that the Kennedy and Johnson administrations pursued interventionist policy in Vietnam for reasons other than assisting the peoples of southeast Asia in securing freedom.
Before World War II, all of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were ruled by the French as a colony called Indochina. During the war, while France was occupied by Germany, Japan controlled Indochina. In 1945, the popular Vietnamese nationalist and communist Ho Chi Mihn succeeded in a revolution against French and Japanese occupation. He drafted a declaration of independence.
Zinn gives a lot of weight to Ho’s declaration, that it drew on early American principles of freedom from oppressive colonial rule. He sites the letters that Ho wrote to president Truman, telling him of humanitarian concerns under French rule. That president Truman gave him no response, presented in the one line “Truman never replied” is Zinn’s first indication of sympathy for Ho and condemnation of American communist policy. Early in the struggle for control of Vietnam after WWII, the Americans would not consider supporting Ho (even though they had during his resistance to Japanese occupation); according to Zinn it was because they were scared of the spread of communism and anti-westernism, not because there was any legitimacy in their fears.
Michael Lind, author of Vietnam: The Necessary War, gives validity to the fears of the presidential administrations of the ‘50s and ‘60s, by illuminating Ho Chi Mihn in the light of the Cold War. “There was an international communist conspiracy, and Ho Chi Mihn was a charter member of it…the regime Ho founded would depend on military and economic support from one or both of the two great powers of the communist bloc [Russia and China]” . Concerning the declaration of independance that Ho drafted, Lind devalues its practical worth by saying “all Marxist-Leninist had formal constitutions that were as liberal and democratic as those of the United States” .
The first an most important source that Zinn uses, indeed that all critics of the Vietnam War have used, are the so-called Pentagon Papers, the US Department of Defense’s own study of the war, leaked by Daniel Ellsburg. He quotes the document as stating that in 1946 Ho Chi Mihn’s resistance was the only Vietnam-wide political organization capable of resisting foreign control . This implies that Ho’s organization had the support of many Vietnamese citizens even in its infancy; why then wouldn’t the United States support a nationalist movement?
For the next eight years the Vietnamese nationalists fought against the French in a bitter war in which the US supported the French by financing 80% of their military efforts with over 2 billion dollars. Zinn says the US was scared of any part of Southeast Asia becoming communist for security and economic reasons. He sites “a secret memo of the National Security council in June of 1952” which implies that communist control in that area would threaten the US position in the Pacific island chain. It doesn’t say how. Another quote from the same source acknowledges that Southeast Asia is particularly wealthy in natural resources; if any part of Southeast Asia fell to communism, then Japan, dependant on those natural resources, would fall to communism. Zinn doesn’t attend to why other countries choosing to be communist would be so threatening to the American government, but if he had, he might argue that countries with free markets that turned communist would hurt American business interests.
Lind gives a very important reason as to why the Truman administration might want to see Vietnam controlled by an ally, France, as opposed to Ho Chi Mihn, and it has to do with something that Zinn never attends to: Ho’s relationship with the communist dictators of Russia and China. Lind says that during the Cold war, “Indochina was the most fought over territory on earth. The region owed this…not to its intrinsic importance but to the fact that in other places where the superpowers confronted each other, they were frozen in a stalemate that could not be broken without the risk of general war” .
By 1954, the French had lost the effort to regain control over Vietnam. An international assembly at Geneva structured a peace agreement: the French would withdraw to South Vietnam, and the Vietmihn (Ho’s supporters) would be allowed to remain in the North, with the understanding that in two years the Vietnamese people would elect a government of their choice.
When Zinn says that “The United States moved quickly to prevent the unification of Vietnam” , he cannot be contested. The US did circumscribe the international intent to let the Vietnamese people choose their own government by installing Ngo Dihn Diem as head of government in South Vietnam, and encouraging him to avoid unification. He sites a 1954 internal memo that states free elections in Vietnam would result in Vietnam and the associated states of Laos and Cambodia becoming communist . This empirical evidence validates Zinn’s argument: the US never intended to allow the Vietnamese people freedom (to choose their own form of government), no matter what the public relations said.
The US sanctioned Diem regime was extremely unpopular with the people of Vietnam. Senator Gruening, author of Vietnam Folly, supports Zinn’s account, and offers the critical interpretation of the US backing Diem’s government instead of Ho Chi Mihn’s. The failure of their figurehead Diem to win the hearts and minds of the people necessitated military action to prevent the people from electing a communist government. Gruening says that the British, Australians and Canadians at this time had serious misgivings about the validity of the US justification for war. “The United States is proposing to use arms in Indochina to put down an internal revolution which is not in fact communist Imperialism” .
By 1958, guerilla activities abounded against Diem’s government. The Vietmihn in the North sent people south to support the guerilla movement. In 1960, the National Liberation front (NLF), supported by southern peasants, was formed.
A more comprehensive view of politics in Vietnam at that time than can be found in Zinn, supported by the theory of Michael Lind, is that Vietnam was engaged in a civil war. On one side, the figurehead Diem and his government in the South, supported by the US, and on the other, Ho Chi Mihn and most of the Vietnamese people, whose military was supported by Russia and China. Zinn does not attend to the support of the Vietmihn by Russia and China, and therefore does not project Vietnam as a pawn caught between superpowers. Yet Lind clearly documents that this was the case: “As many as 3,000 Soviet advisers took part in the Vietnam war… instructing North Vietnamese soldiers in the use of Soviet-supplied equipment, manned the ground based anti-aircraft system, and participated in combat actions against the Americans and South Vietnamese” .
In quoting Douglas Pike’s book Viet Cong, Zinn illustrates the NLF not as an evil communist regime, but as an organized social revolution supported by the people who saw it as a way to make their living conditions better. The NLF offered nationalist resistance to foreign control.
In reality, the Vietnamese people may not have had much of a choice in supporting the communist regime. It was, after all, the only nationalistic party. Lind’s account of Ho Chi Mihn’s agenda is quite separate from those of Zinn and Brinkley. Zinn paints Ho as more of a nationalist than a communist, and Brinkley says that Ho was equally nationalist and communist in his agenda . Lind says that Ho’s goal in achieving legitimate political power was to convert all of Indochina into a “Soviet satellite region” . Lind does state that the people were brutalized by Ho’s regime: “…his chief deputy supervised the destruction of all political opposition by imprisoning, exiling, or murdering tens of thousands of noncommunist Vietnamese nationalists and leftists” . Lind also sites Ho’s “population reclassification degree”, an attempt at land and economic reform that Diem had utterly failed at initiating. But according to Lind, Ho’s law arbitrarily divided subjects into five categories from “landlord” to “agricultural worker”, and that 10,000 – 100,00 were executed for being of the wrong class, and many more were imprisoned .
Even though the international convention at Geneva limited the presence of US military advisers in Vietnam to a mere 685, president Kennedy continued interventionist policies when elected in 1960, and in 1961, according to the Pentagon Papers, he authorized military action against the NLF. Soon Kennedy had over 16,000 troops in Vietnam, some fighting with Diem against the NLF in the South. Diem was losing badly; he had done nothing to reform the economic system and the NLF had the support of the majority of the people, whether through violent coercion or not.
Zinn implies again that the US presidential administrations deceived the people about what we were doing in Vietnam by putting two quotes back to back . He quotes Kennedy’s Undersecretary of State, Alexis Johnson, speaking at an economics club, a saying that involvement with the politics of Southeast Asia was desirable because of its “rich exportable surpluses” . He then quotes a Kennedy news conference in which Kennedy stated the reason for US involvement was to help the people and government of Vietnam maintain their freedom.
Increasingly aware of the shortcomings of the figurehead Diem, Kennedy authorized his assassination/murder. Three weeks later, Kennedy himself was assassinated, and succeeded by Lyndon Johnson.
The incident that enabled President Johnson to wage an all-out war against communist forces in Vietnam was the Gulf of Tonkin skirmish. Zinn quotes then secretary of defense Robert McNamara: while on routine patrol in international waters, the US destroyer Maddox underwent an unprovoked attack . Zinn, with no source to back him, says it was a deception on all three fronts. Gruening agrees with Zinn – the details of the Gulf of Tonkin were unclear and did not add up. If the Maddox was attacked, it was with reason – it was not on routine patrol in international waters. Gruening points out that there were no damages, losses or casualties suffered by the US in the alleged attacks at the Gulf of Tonkin, and furthermore, that the incident did not validate Johnson’s military air strike against North Vietnam, sanctioned by congress via the Southeast Asia resolution. Gruening also posits that the Johnson administration had been planning to ask congress to approve more military action two months before the incident . Both Zinn and Gruening agree that the hurried Southeast Asia Resolution passed by congress, which allowed for President Johnson to use any military means necessary to retaliate against the attacks, gave the president the means with which to initiate massive land battles and air strikes in Vietnam. In the view of both authors, this should only have been done by congress approving a declaration of war, as was intended by the US constitution.
By 1968, there were over 500,000 American troops in Vietnam. Zinn quotes a few newscasts that revealed many of the victims in Vietnam were not even Vietmihn soldiers, but village women and children, even Buddhist monks. He gives several examples of the inhumanity of US war tactics – such as free-fire zones (indiscriminate of who they killed), destroying and murdering entire villages, and mass executions of those suspected of belonging to the communist underground. At this point my disgust matches Zinn’s: we justified these acts of war because these people had different political/economic views than us?
Zinn goes on to quote the testimony of James Dursi at the trial of his commander, Lt. Calley, to show that the violence American soldiers carried out against the Vietnam people did not discriminate between military-aged male communist supporters and virtually all of the other innocent citizens. Zinn says that the army tried to cover up the civilian massacres .
Zinn quotes another secret government report which admitted that the NLF was doing a great job of re-distributing land to the peasants and also admitted that there was ample reason for the people to support the NLF and not the failing government that the US had installed. The NLF was dramatically helping people; the other government was just ineffectual .
He then quotes assistant Secretary of defense strategizing to bring devastation to the civilian population of Vietnam not by bombing villages, which was drawing protest at home, but by bombing locks and dams, thereby ruining the food supply and starving the people into submission .
The rest of the chapter is devoted to how the end of the war was brought about; overwhelming protest at home put pressure on the government. He uses statistics to prove his point. He gives many examples of the antiwar movement, and how it influenced the next president, Richard Nixon, to de-escalate military involvement in Vietnam. In 1973, with no victory in sight, the US tried to negotiate with the Saigon government US withdrawal and the construction of a new compromising government with both communist and noncommunist elements. In the end, the US had to leave without military or political victory, even in compromise. After the US forces departed, Vietnam was re-unified under the remaining revolutionary fighters, who overthrew the Southern Saigon government.
While Zinn attends to the atrocities of war, he doesn’t attend to atrocities committed against civilians after the war by the very communist regimes they fought for. Lind argues that all Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians suffered from the communist victory. “…They endured mass murder and large-scale starvation under the rule of communists” .
Zinn’s position as supplied by his evidence is that the US involvement in the Vietnam War was unjust and deceitful. According to Zinn, the fear of spreading communism and anti-westernism along with economic self-interest was the basis for our military hostilities against the nationalist and communist forces attempting to make their own government in Vietnam. But he does not give credibility to the fears. He does not put Vietnam into the context of the Cold War; he calls it superior technology versus peasants when it was really superior technology versus peasants armed by our enemies. I therefore conclude that Zinn was mostly right in his analysis, but by not attending to the pro-war arguments, most importantly the perceived importance during that time of containing communist power in the interest of avoiding nuclear war, his argument is intrinsically weakened. It was a mistake to treat the Vietnam War in terms that ignore the realities of Cold War power politics.

[Shredd]

You guys made me remember that I saved my short stories from over 10 years ago on my old mac. I'm going to go read my stories.