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During the semester, I shall post course material and students will comment on it. Students are also free to comment on any aspect of American politics, either current or historical. There are only two major limitations: no coarse language, and no derogatory comments about people at the Claremont Colleges. This blog is on the open Internet, so post nothing that you would not want a potential employer to see. Syllabus: http://gov20h.blogspot.com/2023/08/draft-introduction-to-american-politics.html

Tuesday, August 29, 2023

Gov 20H 2023: Beginning

 Do not take this course if you dislike movie references. 😀

For Thursday, read Allen through chapter 4.  Relax:  the reading is only 15 pages.  Will send you a Zoom lecture.

For Tuesday of next week, read Allen ch. 5-13.

Slow reading and democratic writing.

The speech and its setting serve as an introduction to American politics

A CMC connection!

Who was on the program and why?  Songs






I Have a Dream

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation ProclamationThis momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
  • Why the reference to Lincoln?  Hint  And another hint.
  • An allusion within an allusion: The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.(Psalm 90:10)
In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

  • Why the reference to the Declaration?
  • Why the reference to the Constitution?
But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. 
We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.
We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

  • How did Mississippi keep African Americans from voting?
  • What did he mean about New York?

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dreamIt is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
  • What is the American dream?
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evidentthat all men are created equal."

  • What is a creed?
  • What is a self-evident truth?
  • What does the Declaration mean?  (We shall return to this question)
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.


Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of GeorgiaLet freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

  • What's on Stone Mountain?

Getting right with MLK:  

So what does the Declaration mean?   Consider terms such as “equal,” “self-evident.”  Think about the other readings and ask how they help us understand these terms.


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