Hurley in history

Robert Connors

History repeats itself

These nascent Wall Street occupying demonstrations go way beyond “howling in the wind” and will develop into a useful amalgamation of its many ethnic, religious, cultural, economic, and environmental components.

We, the 99 percent, have our own individual stories to tell and at a minimum, intuitively know that something is wrong with U.S. society mostly due to its seemingly unfettered capitalistic excesses. Unbridled greed is ripping the fabric of our society apart at an accelerated pace. Take a look at Michael Moore’s recent interviews on “Democracy Now” for further insight and discussion, for example.

A look at U.S., albeit local, history can reveal interesting comparisons to our present plight.

For example, in the late 1700s, farmers in Western Massachusetts were mostly uneducated, isolated and much-maligned and eventually rebelled against “the system” in what is called Shays Rebellion. They revolted against economic and legal unfairness in what has been called the second Revolutionary War. It’s worth researching the remarkable similarities between this post-Revolutionary War Shay’s Rebellion and today’s economic inequities. Many of these simple farmers were Revolutionary War soldiers who were previously told that they were fighting for economic and social justice. Then after the war, many discovered that they couldn’t pay their farm mortgages because they were never paid for their war efforts and some maintained that they were lied to about their farm mortgage payback terms.

However, the farmer’s active rebellion against the plutocracy of the Bostonbased elitist bankers, merchants and lawyers, was defeated by a moneyed militia. (The last significant battle was fought in Sheffield.) The well-heeled 1-percenters were quite afraid of what the masses could do to them and somewhat reluctantly agreed to write the U. S. Constitution into law as a result.

Be inspired by what these farmers ultimately achieved when you tell the plutocracy that you too are “mad as hell and won’t take it anymore.” In addition, think about whether present- day U. S. capitalism, featuring a Wall Street government, is approaching its natural earthly limits. The Western Massachusetts farmers of old were enraged then and the 99 percenters need to be awakened now to what is occurring in front of their own eyes.

Robert Connors lives in Canaan, N.Y.

It’s worth researching the remarkable similarities between post-Revolutionary War Shay’s Rebellion and today’s economic inequities.

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The exercises in Chapter 3.5 are mostly a collection of real-life excerpts that take us beyond Hurley’s well written examples and into a field where the fallacies are not as readily apparent or necessarily so singular. The piece above is an op-ed from the 10/16/11 Berkshire Eagle. Is the analogy between the 18^th century and today historically accurate, appropriate, and a strong one? Hurley spends much time discussing how our worldview and specifically our emotions influence our phrasing. What are our thoughts on the tone of his language? Is there a threshold or quality to emotive language where it then becomes manipulative? Of course, it would take all the fun out of writing if we had to always and automatically write in standard argument form… but worth considering. Also – are there appeals to people or force here? I feel blemishes of it but am unsure. Have a good weekend all!