We Who Are About to Bug Out Salute YouRutherford B. Hayes.... brought the troops home and ended Reconstruction, with the almost unanimous support of the nation’s liberal establishment. They too fought politically against slavery before the Civil War, risked their lives to emancipate its victims, and, too soon, couldn’t wait to bug out of the South.
posted by Joe in Australia
on May 7, 2012 -
73 comments
Machine guns still firing, 70 years later. The BBC's Dan Snow joins in an dig in Ireland to uncover a Spitfire mk2, hoping to find one o the machine guns in reasonable conditions. They find six, and then it's time to see if they still work.
Okay so they stripped the six to rebuild just one good one, and used modern .303 calibre ammo as opposed to the ammo in the ground, but hey. 70 years and still spitting fire. Of course the WWII in me will point out that the mk V's Hispano cannons were far more effective, but hey, that's not romantic enough for a modern news bulletin.
posted by ewan
on Nov 10, 2011 -
19 comments
The black backs by and on which the fortunes of the New South were built:
On March 30, 1908, Green Cottenham was arrested by the sheriff of Shelby County, Alabama, and charged with “vagrancy.”... Cottenham’s offense was blackness.... [After a brief trial] Cottenham... was sold. Under a standing arrangement between the county and a vast subsidiary of the industrial titan of the North — U.S. Steel Corporation — the sheriff turned the young man over to the company for the duration of his sentence.... he was chained inside a long wooden barrack at night and required to spend nearly every waking hour digging and loading coal. His required daily “task” was to remove eight tons of coal from the mine. Cottenham was subject to the whip for failure to dig the requisite amount, at risk of physical torture for disobedience, and vulnerable to the sexual predations of other miners.... Forty-five years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freeing American slaves, Green Cottenham and more than a thousand other black men toiled under the lash at Slope 12.
— from the Introduction to
Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black People in America from the Civil War to World War II. The
book's website includes
reviews of the book, an
excerpt of the Introduction, and an extensive photo gallery that includes
disturbing images of enslaved and tortured prisoners. [more inside]
posted by orthogonality
on Jun 21, 2008 -
94 comments
As
Armistice Day approaches an exhibition reveals a hidden side to the horror of World War I.
It contains
previously unseen images of British servicemen who suffered terrible facial injuries in the conflict.
The exhibition also tells the story of one surgeon -
Harold Gillies – who through his efforts to help them became known as the father of modern plastic surgery.
WARNING: Some of the following images are of a very graphic nature.
posted by infini
on Nov 3, 2007 -
8 comments
"I thought, 'Why don't we just raid the place?' " --the newest and only currently viable way to check up on how the billions and billions we're spending on reconstruction in Iraq is being spent--fake raids by the US military, making it seem like the recipients aren't receiving aid from us, and in fact are being targeted by us.
posted by amberglow
on Mar 23, 2007 -
35 comments
Massive fraud, theft, corruption in Iraq rebuilding ...Iraqi money gambled away in the Philippines...spent on a swimming pool that was never used...US$700,000 in cash in an unlocked footlocker...millions to companies that never submitted required competitive bids or that were paid for unfinished work...paid US$14,000 on four separate occasions for the same job...US$1.3 million wasted on overpriced or duplicate construction or equipment not delivered..."needlessly disbursed more than US$1.8 million" of the estimated US$2.3 million spent for renovating the library...from new auditor reports from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.
posted by Kickstart70
on Jan 30, 2006 -
48 comments
Fables of the reconstruction. The Bush administration does not intend to seek any further funding for Iraqi reconstruction, leaving only $3.5 billion left to spend out of the $18.4 billion the US budgeted. Approximately half of all reconstruction costs spent so far -- $7.5 billion -- have been eaten up by increased costs due to the insurgency.
All remaining reconstruction costs will depend entirely upon foriegn contributions and Iraq's oil industry. But will foriegn aid come through if its too dangerous to work there? Can Iraq's oil industry pay for reconstruction when its output has been in a tailspin for well over a year, falling from
2.8 million barrels a day in May 2004, to
1.82 million barrels per day in January 2005, to
1.2 million barrels a day by November. and ending the year with a low of
1.1 million barrels a day in December?
As for the Iraqi infrastructure left to be rebuilt, water and sanitation is still poor in most areas, and electricity production, which looked promising last summer after imports from Iran and Turkey, has deteriorated again, falling to only
3700 megawatts in November 2005, essentially at the same level produced
in May 2004.
posted by insomnia_lj
on Jan 2, 2006 -
26 comments
The Iraq Index is a statistical compilation of economic, public opinion, and security data. An extensive collection by the
Brookings Institue of indicators outlining the security situation, the economy and quality of life, as well as polling and politics data.
(One downside is that it is a pdf file). Also from the same source is a comparable compilation for
Afghanistan
posted by forforf
on Aug 5, 2005 -
2 comments
The Rise of Disaster Capitalism --
...Although hotels and industry have already started reconstructing on the coast, in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia and India, governments have passed laws preventing families from rebuilding their oceanfront homes. Hundreds of thousands of people are being forcibly relocated inland, to military style barracks in Aceh and prefab concrete boxes in Thailand. The coast is not being rebuilt as it was--dotted with fishing villages and beaches strewn with handmade nets. Instead, governments, corporations and foreign donors are teaming up to rebuild it as they would like it to be: the beaches as playgrounds for tourists, the oceans as watery mines for corporate fishing fleets, both serviced by privatized airports and highways built on borrowed money....
Naomi Klein on "reconstruction" money after natural disasters--and who benefits.
(Makes Wolfowitz seem like a less unlikely choice to head the World Bank after reading, too.)
posted by amberglow
on Apr 17, 2005 -
36 comments
Buying up Iraq and
Moving Targetssample paragraph from the first article:
Trying to rebuild a country, when you are policing its civilians and fighting an escalating guerilla war, is a daunting task at best but the United States has boxed itself into an impossible position. Having justified its war on Iraq as measure that would bring liberation and Western-style democracy to Iraq, it needs Iraq to conduct elections as a fig-leaf to justify its occupation and allow it to step away from the impossible task of governing what may now have become an ungovernable country. And, the Bush Administration wants the Iraqi elections to be held before the American presidential ones. But, the Iraqi political scene contains several irresolvable contradictions.sample paragraph from the second article
(within)
posted by y2karl
on Dec 11, 2003 -
6 comments
Now children, time for spelling--B is for: Bechtel? Schools have been highlighted as an under-reported
success story of the new Iraq:
“We want young Iraqis to learn skills and to grow and hope, instead of being fed a steady diet of propaganda and hatred," says the pres, but....
"The first time they came here, they went from classroom to classroom with guns dangling over their shoulders, asking the terrified children whom they loved more, Saddam Hussein or George Bush," says a principal.
(more inside)
posted by amberglow
on Dec 3, 2003 -
29 comments
Spoils of War This op-ed piece in The New York Times (free reg req'd) follows the path of money into who is getting what now that the reconstruction phase is about to begin. Might have called this piece: More than Oil.
posted by Postroad
on Apr 10, 2003 -
20 comments
Halliburton out of the running for the $600 billion contract to rebuild Iraqs infrastructure. Andrew Natsios, director of the USAID, which is handing out most of the postwar contracts, is keen to counter any allegations of favoritism or political influence. "If I got a phone call from anybody putting any political pressure on me, I would report it immediately". Halliburton is the company formerly run by Dick Cheney, VP of the United States.
posted by stbalbach
on Mar 28, 2003 -
19 comments
WTC Redevelopment Today at 1pm EST, the 7 proposed
new plans for redevelopment of the former World Trade Center site will be revealed. Currently, they're carrying the announcements of the new proposals (with architect descriptions of their projects) live on wnyc.org on the
Brian Lehrer Show.
posted by callicles
on Dec 18, 2002 -
30 comments
