StocktonAfterClass

Send us Fan Mail Are you getting frustrated with argumentation?  Does it irritate you that so many people just seem to repeat tired old arguments that any reasonable person can see are not true?  Well, maybe you need to listen to this podcast.  Each of us carries around a narrative of logical and irrefutable arguments on this topic.  Except for the fact that people outside of our group have troubl...

Send us Fan Mail For those of you watching the mass killings in Gaza (nearly 14,000 dead in seven weeks, over 2/3 of them women and children) you might find it helpful to think back to an earlier time when Israel was once again implicated in a mass killing.  This was what happened in September, 1982 during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.  The Israelis are quick to point out that they did not them...

Send us Fan Mail Would anyone out there like to have a chat on Zoom?  It is now the end of November, 2023 and I just passed 50,000 total downloads so I am thinking I should do something to honor that event.  What beter thing than to talk to those of you who helped make that number possible.  And I almost never get feedback from you so I really don't know who you are.  We could talk about what...

Send us Fan Mail What happened after the armistice in January of 1949?   Of course, the major consequence was the Palestinian refugees.  Thinking only of what we consider the internationally recognized boundaries of Israel, probably 80% or more of all the Palestinians inside of that area  on January 1, 1948 were gone by December 31, 1948.  This is the real “catastrophe,” or nakhba,  as the Palesti...

Send us Fan Mail It has occurred to me that there is great interest in the background to the current conflict.  Here is a discussion of the Palestinian Refugees of 1948. This is an extremely important topic surrounded by false narratives and inflammatory rhetoric.  I have put off preparing a podcast for some time, but not because it is sensitive.  I deal with quite a few sensitive topics.  It goes...

Send us Fan Mail This is the second podcast on this war.  I have posted it a second time because Buzzsprout had technical problems andthe first posting may not have reached everyone.  It was written November 1.  It is written in the early stages of the Israeli invasion.  Much of it has to do with implications and reactions.  As I post this update on November 5, there are close to 10,000 Palestinia...

Send us Fan Mail This was written November 1.   Much of it deals with the reaction to the war and the implications of the war.  Note:  There are approximatley 10,000 casualties.  40% are children. 

Send us Fan Mail On October 7, 2023, the anniversary of the 1973 War, Hamas began a massive missile barrage at key Israeli cities.  Hamas soldiers crashed through the barriers that enclosed Gaza and struck at 22 different Israeli cities.  They also attacked a Music Festival going on just near the Gaza border.  By the time they were driven back, over a thousand Israelis had been killed.  Perhaps a...

Send us Fan Mail 1973 October War, 50th anniversary October 6.   October 6, 2023 is the 50th anniversary of the 1973 October War.  This war lasted three long weeks and took the great powers (the US and the USSR) to the brink of  nuclear war.  It also cleared the sinuses, so to speak.   Nixon and Kissinger realized that unless there was progress in working out some kind of resolution of the 1967 wa...

Send us Fan Mail Today (September 28) I watched the first hearing of the impeachment investigation (or whatever they are calling it) of Joe Biden.  Not that this podcast  on what the Founders meant by impeachment  will be of much use to the Republican Caucus  Even their three  expert witnesses told them there were no grounds for their investigation.  Unless they just wanted to investigate for the...

Send us Fan Mail Why I Killed Gandhi  by Nathuram Godse  Gandhi was assassinated in 1948.  In most movies, the assassin is portrayed as a deranged bearded scary-looking fanatic. (In one, Horst Buchholz played the role.  His character was closer to the real assassin).  Some of those words might well be justified, but we are never told that the assassin was an exceptionally well educated, well-read...

Send us Fan Mail Falling Man:  A story of September 11 Let me be a Time Traveler and take you back to that terrible day.   For those of us who remember September 11, the image of the “Falling Man” is iconic.  As the flames engulfed the upper stories of the towers, there were several people who decided they would not wait to be burned alive.  They jumped to their deaths.  Some even held hands with...

Send us Fan Mail Biden Will Be a One Term President I came up with this insight nearly three years ago.  If I had posted it back then, you could have thought about it all this time and looked for little signs here and there.  With Joe creating a campaign structure, it may look a bit different in late 2023.   Still, it is only 8 minutes or so long so you will not sacrifice a lot of time listening t...

Send us Fan Mail This is the third indictment of Donald Trump relevant to the election of 2020.  I have done podcasts on each of these.   The Mara-Lago Documents case The January 6 indictments.  Now the Atlanta/Fulton County, Georgia Indictments.  I also did a podcast on the Dominion Voting Machine defamation case against Fox News, which was settled out of court.  If you listen to these four podca...

Send us Fan Mail This is a discussion of the January 6 Indictment for Insurrection handed down in early August.  There is an earlier podcast on the Mara-Lago stolen documents case, and one on the Dominion Voting Machine defamation lawsuit against Fox News.  There were some glitches in this podcast. The Vice President is President of the Senate, not Speaker.  Giuliani showed the Georgia committee a...

Send us Fan Mail This is the kind of podcast I try to avoid. a discussion of an issue that is ongoing.  The problem is that it might evolve in a different direction and I would be exposed as someone who had seriously misunderstood the issues or missed key points.  I remember writing a podcast on the Ukraine-Russia controversy.  The next morning when I went into my office to record it, I realized t...

Send us Fan Mail Let's start with a Trigger Warning:  Not only am I going to tell you about this book, and about its impact on American society.  I am also going to read excerpts to you.  You will not find these passages easy to hear.   This is about Reconstruction in South Carolina where the author (Thomas Dixon Jr.) lived.  He was a prominent minister, actor, author, and local hero.  He was...

Send us Fan Mail I have  a two-part podcast on Gandhi.  This is Part I. It focuses on  Gandhi's concept or strategy of Satyagraha.  He invented that term himself.  It means Soul  Force.  We might say non-violent resistance.  It is pacifist, but not passive.  it is definitely confrontational.  It was rooted in deep moral concepts, but also in Indian culture and history.  Maybe this podcast wil...

Send us Fan Mail This was the final lecture in my class on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, the last time I taught that class.    The thesis is that none of the main political science models for how this conflict will end are correct.  But History (capital H) does not like intractable conflicts.  SOMETHING will happen.  And History (capital H) will not ask us what we think.  Most likely, History...

Send us Fan Mail How can a totally innocent man be unequivocally identified as a rapist?   And be sentenced to 28 years in prison?  And when the false conviction is exposed and the case thrown out, is there any way for the person who made the false identification to find peace?   This is the story of Alice Sebold, whose famous books, The Lovely Bones, and Lucky tell the stories of a young girl and...

Send us Fan Mail This is a discussion of the indictments in the Mara-Lago documents case.  If you are confused, and don't want to read the 60 page indictment with its 37 counts, this may be a short cut for you.  It addresses some context, some points of law, some background issues.   There are a couple of glitches in this podcast.   A fine would be $250,000, not $250.  And a name in a string...

Send us Fan Mail In 1993, 30 years ago on April 19, the totalitarian government in Washington, the New Babylon, the entity that must be destroyed, exposed its true nature.  What happened on that day became an inflection point, a call to action.  This podcast is a followup on my earlier podcast on Violent White Nationalism.  It explains the logic of those who agree with that opening paragraph.  Don...

Send us Fan Mail On March 30, 2023 I delivered my farewell Legacy Lecture to the UM-Dearborn community.  There were  70 plus people present.   The event had four stages.  First, two colleagues (Don Anderson and Elias Baumgarten) reflected on my career and their interactions with me;  then I delivered my talk; then five memorable students were on a panel to discuss their work with me; then there wa...

Send us Fan Mail On May 14, 1948  (on the American calendar) the Zionist forces in Palestine declared the arrival of the state of Israel.  2023 is the 75th anniversary of that event.  Israelis and Jewish nationalists in general consider this to be a day of liberation.  To Palestinians it is a day of catastrophe (Nakba) when they lost not only their farms and homes and quarries and orchards and pro...

Send us Fan Mail In 1862 Victor Hugo wrote what may be the greatest novel of the 19th century.  He wrote this masterpiece in 14 months, while he was in exile.  It is about Jean Valjean who was sentenced to the galleys for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his widowed sister and her chidren.  Many people have seen the film or stage version of this novel, but the written text is stunning.  Was it div...