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There was a little "war" in the Appalachians between miners and the mine owners. I saw it on the History Channel, wrote it down, read a bit about it, used it as forum fodder.
But I didn't keep it all in mind, so I'd have to look it up again. A similar thing happened in the Harlan County War...labor against management. That kind of thing happened a LOT in the early 20th century, and before.
I've always been interested in the eugenics program in early 20th century America. It was called the war on the poor. Tens of thousands [some say over a million] sterillzed against their will, mostly poor whites and Native American women. Removed from their homes. Their children taken from them and sold on a black market. Carrie Buck. People put into institutions wrongly. Then some were forced into slave labor so a few could make it through the Great Depression. All these institutions and asylums had graveyards with no names, just numbers. How about this name.. The Hiawatha Insane Asylum for Indians. Where, today, the graveyard of 121 Indians lies between the 4th and 5th fairways on the Hiawatha Golf Course. Boys in a boy's home given radioactive oatmeal to see what effect it would have on them. And nobody ever talks about it. I think I've depressed myself.
I think the miners uprising was in a town called Matawan, West Virginia.
I think Custer had it coming.
I think "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" should be required high school reading.
With a history of atrocities such as ours I think we have no business telling other countries how they should live. We obviously havent learned from our history.
I think the miners uprising was in a town called Matawan, West Virginia.
I think Custer had it coming.
I think "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" should be required high school reading.
With a history of atrocities such as ours I think we have no business telling other countries how they should live. We obviously havent learned from our history.
Yes, Matewan, I remember it now that you mentioned it.
To list a few groups, in no particular order, that have been persecuted:[...]
Perfectionists
Thank you, harry chickpea, for reminding us of the historical and ongoing persecution throughout the world of the Perfectionists by the Pragmatists, or the Deadline Setters as they are known in the U.S. I'd like to touch on some interesting twists in this persistent and likely insoluble conflict as it developed in the United States.
Throughout Western history, in every era and in every language, individual seekers after flawlessness have called themselves "Perfectionists"; it is indeed the most perfect name for them possible. The Perfectionists' dichotomous opposites, those who seek progress as measured in units of time, had no universally recognized appellation other than "Darwinian" ("Darwinian bastards," by the Perfs) until the early twentieth century when they became known as the Pragmatists (although one group of French middlemen calling themselves Les Responsibilists (1787-89) lent a vague public awareness to the philosophy in late-eighteenth century Europe).
In the U.S., however, a distinctive nickname caught on. In 1850s Manhattan, the congested conditions of the working world allowed these practical businessmen to recognize each other, to band together and eventually to give themselves a monicker. They called themselves the Deadline Setters. The name is believed to combine Irish setters, the inarguability of death, and a tip of the hat to the Five Points gangs of the day such as the Dead Rabbits, also known for setting deadlines. Pronunciation of the early name emphasized the syllable "Set," lending to the group a pugnacious gang-style aura; present pronunciation emphasizes "Dead." But 150 years on, the name and intent remain the same - to subject Perfectionists to the Deadline.
A Setters drinking song from 1854:
From the tigers to the Customs House, From the Bat'ry to Ninth Street,
We Setters kick Perfection's arse, Won't let her drag her feet.
The antipathy between Ps and DSers smoldered until it burst into fire over what approach to take concerning the establishment of a country-style park for the city. The Ps' story goes that DSers bribed moderate and tentative Ps to lend their talents but to work hurriedly, to "just finish the job," to the perceived detriment of the Park that was possible to build, or at least not impossible. Brawls between Ps and DSers over greensward development, materials, import tariffs, and architectural styles appropriate to appropriate ignited around the city; scores died.
Frederick Law Olmsted was the Perfectionists' man on the Central Park plan initially; he was forced off in 1860 and replaced by a DPer, who hastened work and completed it in 1873. In the glare of publicity and with money and praise heaped upon them, the Deadline Setters who won through to make the Central Park dream a fair-budgeted reality became irreversibly respectable. The Perfectionists' Central Park plan remains a work in progress.
National news reporting of the Central Park achievement made deadlines and the setting of them part of the American vernacular. (This touched off an anxiety among American Perfectionists as to the catchiness of their own name, but "Flawlessnetians" and "Michelangeloneites" ultimately were rejected and the classic name remains.) The DSers' salubrious effect upon the prosperity of young New York was so great that DS philosophy, though already a fixed element of every civilization's economic and social status quo, was incorporated into the fabric of American life, from homely hearth to intergalactic megacorporation.
The Perfectionists acknowledge that throughout history, in contests involving practical matters they have been consistently trounced by the Pragmatists. Only in mythology, folklore and fable have the Perfectionists ever led the game for any length of time, but always only for the short run and generally culminating in cataclysmic disaster which must be remedied by a long-suffering pragmatic character. Many Perfectionists resentfully feel, perhaps rightly, that the old stories would be forgotten were it not for malicious, rich Pragmatists who continue to re-publish them in order to prove and re-prove a moral point.
It is estimated that today, for every die-hard Perf there are at least three Prags. Conflict arising between Prags and Perfs often is ad hoc, but the acknowledgment that conflict will arise is so overwhelmingly a fact of business existence that virtually every employee manual stresses meeting deadlines on consequence of termination.
In the U.S., the Perfectionists' original motto, "Eternal tweaking is the price of irreproachability," which had stood since 1869, was replaced in 1978 by "Do you want it done right or do you want it today?" As an innocuous-seeming rhetorical slogan on a novelty desktop sign, the new motto is known to have been used as a high sign to other Perfectionists in the workplace, similar to the fish drawing on second-century Christian doors. Present-day DS'ers have uniformly adopted "Git 'er Done!" as their own slogan. The famous two-sided spinning sign with "Git 'er Done!" on one side and "Mission Accomplished!" on the other is a popular DS recruiting tool.
The holy martyr of the Perfectionists is Erich von Stroheim. The hero of the Deadline Setters is Henry Ford.
Last edited by delusianne; 05-01-2008 at 12:45 PM..
Reason: changed "situations" to "contests"
I was looking through my Netflix queue tonight, and a movie caught my eye. It's called "September Dawn". It was made in 2007, stars Lolita Davidovich, John Voight, Dean Cain. Not that I expect this movie to provide a totally accurate telling o the events, but if the subject interests you, it might be worth watching.
I've always been interested in the eugenics program in early 20th century America. It was called the war on the poor. Tens of thousands [some say over a million] sterillzed against their will, mostly poor whites and Native American women. Removed from their homes. Their children taken from them and sold on a black market. Carrie Buck. People put into institutions wrongly. Then some were forced into slave labor so a few could make it through the Great Depression. All these institutions and asylums had graveyards with no names, just numbers. How about this name.. The Hiawatha Insane Asylum for Indians. Where, today, the graveyard of 121 Indians lies between the 4th and 5th fairways on the Hiawatha Golf Course. Boys in a boy's home given radioactive oatmeal to see what effect it would have on them. And nobody ever talks about it. I think I've depressed myself.
The library at my little town has the records of the local poor farm which closed in the 1920s and if memory serves opened just post-Civil War. People who had nowhere else to go would walk there or be brought there by a traveler or friend and stay, working on the poor house farm to keep themselves fed, or in the buildings. The book records - in a faded Copperplate hand - by date the name and age of each person who checked in, the reason they came, the date they left (or died) and if known the reason they left. Many old people, many young girls with babies, wives with children. There is a mass grave near the water tower of folks from there - they had had individual graves but development required that the graves be moved.
Why was I never taught anything about this in school or even heard of it up until now? It seems to me like it would be a big enough event that it should be included in any book about the history of that time period.
Probably for the same reason most Americans stupidly insist on referring to the "13 Original Colonies."
There were 12 Original Colonies. The colony of Carolina had a civil war and split into north and south. Then it re-united. Then it split administratively into north and south. Then it re-united. Then it split permanently under more or less friendly terms.
And probably for the same reason that you aren't told why there were a few states undergoing civil wars while there was a "revolutionary" war going on. The Brits didn't do much in the southern colonies during the rebellion, because the rebels (wealthy land owners and merchants) were fighting the Tories, and the masses of people were fighting the rebels, sort of like Iraq only different.
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