My Division III project is a two-part analysis of the American Revolution. The first part of the project is a research paper delving into the myths and misconceptions about the founding of the United States, questioning the legitimacy and progressiveness of the Revolution. The project culminates in an anti-racist, anti-imperialist lesson plan on the American Revolution with the intent that students will come to their own conclusions about the meaning(s) of this historical movement.

This lesson plan is geared toward high school-aged students who will already have a basic understanding of American history. The main topics explored in the course are the philosophies of the Founding Fathers, the creation of a new national identity, and the construction of a unique racial hierarchy. Some of the questions raised include: What does it mean that instances of extreme violence and rebellion from within the colonies are left out of traditional (colonialist) narratives of American history? How much did social conditions actually change in the colonies after the founding of an independent nation? Finally, how “progressive” was a “revolution” that was fought to found a slave state on occupied indigenous land?

Dear world,

I have a bunch of New Year's resolutions for you. This last decade sucked balls, and I know of a ton of individuals and institutions who need to clean up their act a little bit. As for me, I think I'm pretty perfect the way I am, so I only made one resolution, and that is to continue to keep it classy in 2010. Keeping it classy entails:

-Leaving lipstick stains on my coffee lid.
-Considering see-through tights acceptable pants in my own living space.
-Eating maraschino cherries out of the jar.
-Doing my makeup at work in the mirror at the jewelry counter.
-Carting my research books to the library and back in a Magic Hat beer box ('cause I'm getting krunk on knowledge).
-Speaking Spanish with a serious European lisp.
-Wearing hiking boots with stockings and a dress (because it's snowing, dammit).
-Checking Deceiver.com and FML before I check the news.
-Explaining burlesque, polyamoury and Wicca to schocked monotheists.
-Going about my business in curlers the day before a fancy night.

If anyone wants to register any complaints with me, you can do so in the comments section, but I probably won't listen to them.

<3 xoxo Moi.

I.

God said unto the students, Thou shalt not covet thy modmate's food, unless agreed upon.

II.

Then God said unto the students, This shall be an uggo-free zone.

III.

But Lord, asked the students, Shalt this not also be a judgment-free space? And the Lord said, This shall be a judgment-free space for the modmates only, But they may judge those who enter this dwelling uninvited. And the students saw that it was good.

IV.

And the Lord God said unto the students, Thou shalt clean up thy shit. And not only thine own shit shalt thou clean, But if thou takest heed of general pileup in the mod, Thou shalt tend to the clutter for the betterment of the common space or thou shalt feel My wrath upon thee.

 

V.

And so the friends lay down at the close of a long day, And did fill their pipes with the bounty of the earth in the form of hallucinogenic herbs. And the Lord God said unto them, For thine own sake and for the sake of thy neighbors in the Prescott tower, Thou shalt cover the smoke detectors with bags made of plastic when partaking in the smoking of doobage. And the students saw that it was very good.

VI.

And speaking of doobage, Said the Lord God, I caution ye to beware the substances that ye do ingest. Lest ye do not end up in the E.R. of the Cooley Dickinson Hospital, Trusteth not a hippie to provide you with drugs uncut with a substance more dangerous. Trusteth not a hippie with anything.

VII.

And one day a modmate returned home with a handsome harlot, And the others did wish that he partake with them in their daily ritual of watching Wife Swap. And God said unto the others, Thou shalt not cock-block. Thou shalt aid thy fellow modmates in the bedding of many harlots, As you would have your modmates do unto you.

 

VIII.

And the Lord told unto the students that their dwelling should have a theme, And that theme beith dinosaurs. Thou shalt honor thy figurines and posters of these reptilian wonders, And Thou shalt not worship false dinosaurs, Such as Barney, Who scareth the crap out of everyone who was a smart kid.

IX.

This beith our last year as students of Hampshire, Noted the friends. We shall be in isolation completing our projects, Which we shall feel the need to explicate so as not to descend into a pit of loneliness. And God said unto them, Thou shalt not talk excessively about thy Division Three project without agreeing to hear another long-winded rant of another's project or experience, Either at the given time or at another time agreed upon. Thou shalt be aware that no one careth about your project as much as you do.

X.

And so, I leaveth thee to your dwelling, Said the Lord God, With one last commandment: What happens in the mod does stayeth in the mod. Mod gossip shalt not leave this dwelling, Hilarious though it may be. Let not thy debauchery be known to the outside world, But within this space thou shalt indulge in every perversity that thou seeist fit. And the friends saw that it was good.

Remember back in our first year, when Prescott was this ominous, scary party place that we were warned about, nesting place of Slytherins and cokeheads and angry hipsters? Well, around last year all the party people moved to Enfield so now Prescott is filled with a mish-mash of Div. IIIs and underclassmen, content to accept sno-cones from the interns during a block party and then pour vodka over them. If I were more of a dick than I already am I would ask aloud, when did Prescott get so classless? I was picking up empty beer bottles and cans from the debauchery of the previous night so as to beautify the neighborhood and acquire more soda can tabs for my collection, and about 99% of the cans I picked up were Pabst, Keystone and Natty Ice, some with lipstick still smeared around the top. I found myself transported back to Menotomy Rocks Park of Arlington, MA, to my high school days of yore where sometimes I would join my fellows in carousing 'neath the canopy of stars within the forests' gentle embrace, fleeing on nubile feet at first glare of a copper's flashlight beam slicing through the trees...

Our mod is pretty awesome, and everyone seems to agree. Chris, Lizz, Athena and I live in 84, and Bera, Sarah D., Josh G.-S., Staci, Zaike, Diana F., Max and Jonah live above us. We enjoy their company so much more when we're not actually living with them. (And waking up to Bera and Josh playing guitar and singing “500 Miles” by the Proclaimers out on the railing is pretty priceless.)
 

We have an excellent dynamic, and were trying to figure out which Beatles archetypes we all fit (John the Patriarch, Paul the Matriarch, George the Craftsman and Ringo the Clown). We decided I was a Paul but also a George, since I am crafty but quiet about my plans. Chris and Athena are the “parents,” even though it's me who's always making sure everyone does a tick-check after hikes in the woods and other mom stuff like that. Maybe a more accurate identity is that I'm just that really grumpy grandpa who yells every time there's a knock on the door because he's expecting one of a select handful of annoying people to come calling (*Ahem*). Athena says she can picture me being a nice old lady with a big garden somewhere, nice to all the neighborhood kids, then one day some kid does a school project about me and uncovers a bunch of newspaper articles about my revolutionary days in which I was a car bomber/guerrilla insurgent. I can totally see that happening.
 

So far our adventures have included a communal bottle of absinthe, a trip to Costco, Target, grocery stores and every store in-between, a dinosaur-themed party, nightly read-alouds of bad literature (currently: Twilight), Lifetime TV in the middle of the afternoon, and plans for Little Prince Halloween costumes.
 

Anyway, I'm currently in the Purgatory that is between Div. II and Div. III, hopefully to emerge sometime this week. I feel like “Eye of the Tiger” should be playing in my vicinity til this thing is done. I'd get so fucking sick of that song.

Hannah Allen
9/28/09

DIVISION III PROPOSAL

As a child growing up in the suburbs of Boston, school was the bane of my existence. The classroom was where we were expected to conform to both the social norms of the day and the prescribed course of “education” that forces unbeknownst to us had decided was just the right balance of facts and figures to keep us all knowledgeable but submissive.

I garnered, from my years sensing, knowing that what we were being taught was bullshit, but not quite sure why, that there was no respectable “place” for me in my small society. I would be an artist. I would do anything so long as I didn't have to deal with living up to the ideal of the perfect child/citizen that my schooling was attempting to mold out of us. Two questions floated through my mind without taking a solid shape until my teenage years: Why am I suffocating? How did things come to be this way?

It was not until our sophomore year of high school that the concept of Marxist thought was even mentioned to us. More than being eager to devour these new subjects, I was angry at how long these curricula had been kept from us. I realized, as I drew parallels to patterns of suppression and control worldwide, that American educators, whoever they may be who designs history units, were scared more than anything when approached with the task of constructing courses of study regaled with themes of questioning the status quota, organization from below, and rebellion.

In the little world of public school, our teachers stressed such abstract concepts as “respect” and “tolerance.” In Newspeak, respect meant submission and tolerance meant endurance and strength enough to repress any urge to think outside the box. We were “encouraged” to be creative, as long as our insight was applied to the narrow confines of the project at hand. The subjects of Mathematics, Science, and even English (a.k.a. “Language Arts”) to some degree are noncontroversial and therefore easy to drill into young minds without complaint from parents or the School Board.

But what to do, asked these kind of “educators”, when we get to the subject of History? What will happen when these kids start hearing stories of rebels who thought differently, fought back, and changed the world? What if they start to question us? Their solution: leaving the undesirable parts of history out of the story. What revolution? The American Revolution is the one you emulate. White people colonizing, ethnically cleansing and fighting for a land that does not belong to them is an acceptable revolution. That is progress. Owning property and being able to purchase and accumulate material possessions is freedom.

What, then, are these young people supposed to look forward to in life when faced with the choice of either accepting their lot in the capitalist workforce or refusing to be part of the system (which we are told is not an option)?

Half the reason of designing this curriculum on World Revolution is to let those trapped in the monogamy of the public school classroom know that there are other possibilities besides the one-sided view of the world presented in school. There are other lives, other worlds that are not being taught. If I can open the eyes of even one little girl to let her know that she is not alone, that others before her have fought the system and won, I will have accomplished my goal.

I plan to design a History course on World Revolution and Revolutionary Theory geared towards eighth to tenth graders. The first part of the course will cover the basics of rebellion and explore such questions as: What is a revolution? When can/does a revolution occur (what are the steps that lead up to a revolution)? What is progress?

From here, the curriculum will delve into specific case studies of peoples' movements around the world, including the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the Russian Revolution, Ireland's Easter Rebellion, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, the Palestinian Intifadas, with a special conclusion on revolution in the United States exploring the American Indian and Black Power movements.

Active classroom activities will be interspersed with discussion and group work/projects. At the end of the course, the students will be assigned a 10-12 page paper exploring in detail the revolution or peoples' movement of their choice.

The specific peoples' movements I have chosen to include in this course were the final choices wheedled down from a much larger list. While I wanted to cover the basics of a prescribed World History class, I wanted to keep from rehashing the same Eurocentric teachings that I had been trying to avoid. I managed to strike a balance between the well-known and the lesser-known movements: some, such as the Russian and French Revolutions, are so basic as to be taught in any high school, but I plan to delve into the reasoning and logic behind each movement. The French Revolution is included because it directly influenced the American Revolution, and vise-versa. The Russian Revolution is included because it was a major watershed event that continued to affect European politics long after its initiation and spanning the 20^th century.

I have included the Cuban Revolution because it is one of the most successful socialist revolutions in history, and the country still stands strong to this day. The Chinese Cultural Revolution is important because it propelled China onto the world stage, and the country's power and influence continues to grow. I believe the Palestinian Intifadas is necessary because of our unique position as Americans and political allies of Israel. I have included the Easter Rebellion and a brief history of pan-Celtic nationalism because I am from Boston, most likely will remain teaching around the Boston area, and want to re-connect the city's immense Irish population with our radical roots.

This curriculum will include active classroom activities and games illustrating the different points presented, as well as asides on topics of interest such as propaganda art of different regimes around the world.

I am excited and eager to begin the journey of amassing and condensing this huge amount of information and re-presenting it in a format suitable for students being introduced to these historical concepts. I firmly believe that education is the basis of social change, and I cannot wait to play a role in the preliminary radicalization of young minds.

Hello Sir,

my name is Hannah, and I am a white American calling to inform you about some terrorist organizations in Israel that you may not be aware of.

Sir, I am afraid that the Nazis may have risen again under your very nose. I am afraid that they may have risen again because of the obsession in your country with ethnic cleansing, your insistence on a racial hierarchy. I was uncomfortable the minute I stepped into Ben-Gurion Airport. You did your best to make me, a non-Jew, feel unwelcome. Your security guards, asking why I didn't speak Hebrew and why I had an unfamiliar (Scottish) name, conveyed with their questions and preceding thorough search of my bags that I had no business in your country because I did not belong to your ethnicity and religion. I am afraid because you detained my friend at the Jordanian border for eight hours because he had an Arab surname, despite the fact that he was a U.S. citizen born and raised in California.

Sir, I am afraid that the Nazis may have risen again because every single day Palestinian children in the West Bank are spat on as they walk to school, called “whores” and “dirty Arabs” by Jewish settlers, who believe that the Arabs whose country they have stolen are of an inferior race.

I am afraid because the cameras in towns like Hebron are on all the time, watching Palestinians' every move, but when a settler throws a brick at a child or kicks a woman, it is as if the cameras have turned off and did not see anything.

Sir, I am afraid that the Nazis may have risen again because of the pogroms in Akka, Hebron and Nablus. I am afraid of these terrorists you are not catching because these mobs of Jewish settlers burn down Arab houses, destroy Arab businesses, throw bricks at children, and aim to kill. I am afraid because I see Kryshtallnacht again, and I am afraid because you do not. I am afraid that the Nazis may have risen again because during these pogroms, your soldiers stand still and do nothing to stop the mobs.

I am afraid because you offer segregated tours of Israel through a program called Birthright, encouraging Jews to settle in Israel and populate the country with more Jewish children, so as to wipe out the Palestinians. I am afraid because these impressionable youths get their heads filled with a sunny interpretation of segregation, with the notion that they are innocent of all blame and that the land is theirs to take.

I am afraid that the Nazis may have risen again because you are inflicting a Holocaust upon Gaza. I am afraid the Nazis may have risen again because you can still sleep at night, because you justify this genocide upon the Palestinians. I am afraid that the Nazis may have risen again because you do not see this at all.

I hope I have been of help to you in identifying terrorists in Israel.

(Here is the number you dial from the U.S.: 011-972-2-5839749 Tie up those phone lines! Call and order a large cheese pizza! Call with a German accent trying to reach your Aunt Mergatroyd in Berlin! Pretend you're working for a phone sex hotline! Call with a Hebrew accent and pretend you're questioning people at airport security: "What ahr you doing in Israel?" Call in a Darth Vadar voice and congratulate the army for doing such a good job founding and keeping up such an evil, evil nation! Just tie up those phone lines!)

“We must develop our political work with dogged determination to rid ourselves of the lack of internal motivation, that is, the lack of political clarity, which translates into things not getting done. This can be done, first, through continuous education, through concrete explanations of the tasks, through instilling in administrative employees an interest in their work, and through the example set by the vanguard workers. And, second, by taking drastic measures to eliminate the parasites, whether it be those who conceal in their stance a deep enmity to socialist society, or those who are irremediably opposed to work.”

--Che Guevara, from “Against bureaucratism,” 1963

TRANSLATION: WASH YOUR FUCKING DISHES.

“Each one of you [in the mods] has to work on having it very clear in your consciousness that you cannot be a good communist (modmate) if you think about the revolution only at the moment of decisive sacrifice (mod meetings), at the moment of combat (house inspections), of heroic adventure, of what is out of the plain and ordinary, but in your work you are mediocre or less than mediocre.”

--Che Guevara, from “To be a Young Communist,” 1962

Since I'm hosting an Emperor's New Groove-viewing party this weekend, let's take a minute to talk about how ridiculously fabulous Eartha Kitt is. First of all, she's YZMA, a role for which she won an Annie Award for Best Vocal Performance (2001). It's SO rare for comedic roles to be written for women that audiences expect a really superb performance on those occasions—and Eartha delivers! A lot of people feel that women are either funny or sexy, they have to choose between being one or the other. Eartha, a cabaret star, is a great example of a triple-threat star who proved that it was possible to be funny AND sexy... just watch this clip of her singing “I Want To Be Evil” for proof.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ5VaBgXzuM

Back in the '60s, you could totally see inklings that this multi-talented performer would one day grow up be a scary-beyond-all-reason Peruvian royal official planning to take over the kingdom.

Still in Ramalla, still working my butt off on this boycott/divestment campaign. If you want to read more about my adventures in Palestine, I set up a different blog: meenerhabi.blogspot.com (I would love for you guys to check it out if you have five minutes!)

Here's a sample of some questions we were asked in yesterday morning's workshop on formulating a campaign, and here were some of my answers:

1. Principles/beliefs (What do we believe in?)
A: Kicking Zionist butt.

2. Goals (What do we want to achieve?)
A: Kick Zionist butt.

3. Campaign profile (Who are we?)
A: We are Zionist-butt kickers.

4. Allies (Who are our allies?)
A: Other people who want to kick Zionist butt.

5. Targets (Who are our opponents?)
A: ZIONISTS.

6. Events (What do we do? How do we get to our goals?)
A: NEED YOU ASK??

7. Relationship to Palestine (How are we connected/accountable?)
A: We oppose Palestine's butt being kicked by Zionism.

8. Structure and process (How do we work?)
A: We kick Zionist butt, strategically. 

I hope everyone is having a good summer so far. I miss you guys but will be home this week. Keep a lookout on my new blog after Friday for pictures, if the soldiers at Ben Gurion don't confiscate my cameras!