Mark Albertson’s Historical Topics for Presentation
Topics for presentation by Mark are listed in categories. If you do not see a subject you’re interested in, feel free to contact Mark for its availability since this listing is still subject to revision.
“Here’s to plain speaking and clear understanding,” Kasper Gutman to Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.
American History
America: A Democracy? A Republic?
Americans of all sizes, types, colors, gender, and political and religious persuasions seem at a loss as to what type of government this nation was founded on. A clue can be found in the Pledge of Allegiance: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the…” or Article IV, Section 4 of the United States Constitution: “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a ____ form of government.” The word is “Republic.” For many of the Founders were foes of Democracy. This talk will explain while referring to the Founders’ words and writings, the differences between Democracy and Republic and why the Founders were opponents of the former. As a bonus, this talk will include briefs on Socialism, Marxism (again, many seem confused as to the commonalities and differences), Fascism, and Syndicalism.
American Putsch
At the height of the Great Depression, with America saddled with a 25 percent unemployment rate, retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Darlington Butler reported to Congress that he had been approached to take part in a Wall Street-Fascist plot against President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This would commence an investigation by the McCormack-Dickstein Committee, the first House of Un-American Activities Committee, convened in 1933-1934. Such names of American privilege as the Du Ponts, Pitcairns, the Morgan interests, Remington Arms, elements of the American Legion, Guaranty Trust, and its director, Grayson M.P. Murphy, are just some of those considered participants in the plot. But in the end, no one will ever be prosecuted, as in the 2008 Banking Crisis. The American Putsch or Business Plot is a forgotten episode during a dark period in American history and should be resurrected for the new generations.
Article of Faith
The Declaration of Independence, considered America’s founding document, was also a Declaration of War against the globe’s ranking imperialist power, Britain. But this document is more than a simple expression of wanting a divorce from the oppressive Crown; it was a unifier, an effort at organizing, what had been up to 1776, a spontaneous uprising throughout the colonies. Uprisings which led to local attempts at political control. Committees of public safety enabled colonists to establish control in their locales. But revolutions cannot be successful when they lack cohesion. And the 56 signers from 13 colonies display that attempt at unity… a unity that will eventually lead to the Constitution and its attendant Bill of Rights. The actual title of the Declaration of Independence is “The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America.”
Electoral College
One of the most misunderstood aspects of the American Republic. Found in Article II, Section I, of the Constitution. "Electors" were applied to act as a check on the voters. Part of the system of Checks and Balances which made the Republic unique. Some of the Founding generation did not trust the Common Man to preserve Representative Government; and, sought to marginalize or safeguard against the unsteadiness and tempestuousness of the masses.
The Lewis Powell Memo: Manifesto of American Fascism
In August 1971, Lewis Powell, who would be named to the Supreme Court by President Richard Nixon, penned a wake up call for Business. America, it seemed, was being suborned by such popular agendas as the Civil Rights Movement; the Anti-War Movement; in addition to America's young as well as academics in colleges and universities who were questioning Capitalism. . . Powell's doctrine to the Chamber of Commerce was a wake up call to the Business Community. He urged Business to take a position in the Education System; the Media; become more politically aware and involved. And so the Business will do so, with Conservative Think Tanks, Political Action Committees. . . And among certain individuals Powell criticizes as being anti-business, Ralph Nader. Indeed, the Powell Memo will become the Manifesto of American Fascism.
The Strategic Significance of the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor
This talk will not dwell on the attack itself; that is aired every year on many television stations. Rather this talk will address the "why?" Why did the Japanese attack a sleeping U.S. fleet in the Hawaiian Islands on the Day of Infamy. This talk, then, will commence with the rise of Japan as a power in the 19th century; the resulting friction between Japan and the United States in the world's largest ocean; the significance of oil; the determinant known as naval power; the tumultuous decade of the 1930s; and, why December 1941 was the turning point of a war that did not start on 1939; but, 1914.
The Strategic Significance of the Spanish-American War
A decisive development in the history of the United States. For by 1898, Chesapeake Bay was linked with the Golden Gate. With the absorption of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam, Manifest Destiny ceased being an agenda for Continental expansion and became a doctrine for globalism. America was cutting its ties to its colonial roots and joining the club of imperialist nations. A decisive step was taken towards the destruction of the Republic and Representative Government, giving way to . . . Pax Americana, the American Empire.
Well-Regulated Militia
The Militia noted in the Second Amendment and bolstered by the 1792 Militia Act no longer applies. The Militia concept was based on state control by the governors, as opposed to staffing a large conventional army which many of the Founders saw as a threat to the viability of the Republic. But with America's ascension to the ranks of the imperialist powers, the 1792 Militia Act was superseded by the 1903 National Guard Act. Today's National Guard is not the Citizen Soldier concept as originally conceived. For the National Guard today is a bona fide reserve of the United States Army.
General History
This talk explains the T4 program in Nazi Germany. The program of organized medical killing by which the Nazis sought to Aryanize the German race by ridding the Reich of its "useless eaters." The program began first with the children, fetuses to age three, terminating those born incurably physically handicapped or considered mentally incompetent. The program's threshold was raised to sixteen years old and liberalized to include mongolism, "borderline juvenile delinquency", and "inferior genes," a national socialist euphemism for Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, and others considered non-German.
Eventually, T4 was broadened to include the entire adult population of Germany. And as the workload expanded, so did the need to expand the termination process, from needles and lethal injection to gas chambers. T4 formed the blueprint for the Final Solution; an insidious program which saw the diabolical collusion of the German medical community, government functionaries, and the SS.
Many Americans have a poor grasp of history. An affliction due in part perhaps to a poor stimulation towards history. Much of this is societal: lack of interest in the family setting; inferior teaching methods and approaches in the schools; and lack of attention paid to history in the popular media. These are among the plethora of reasons for the lack of attention and regard for history. Yet, history tells us who we are as a people; where we have been, and where we are going. History can arouse and invigorate critical thinking. History can spur one to understand an event of extraordinary significance, then develop conclusions contrary to those generally accepted as gospel. And that is gist of this talk.
This talk focuses on events in history and seeks to illuminate results that have been misunderstood or perhaps, even latent. For instance, how that area we call Iraq affected the growth of America in the 19th century; the true meaning of D-Day, June 6, 1944; essence of the Domino Theory; and the true meaning of the Louisiana Purchase. These and other examples call into question accepted beliefs on these topics, all in an effort to stimulate critical thinking and conversation on history.
The Middle East
In 1798, Napoleon invaded Egypt and the Levant. But he did so as the commander of a French Revolutionary Army; an army which brought the ideas of the French Revolution to the Near East—Liberalism, Democracy, Republicanism, Secularism, Nationalism, Socialism, and Parliamentarianism… And Napoleon brought the internet equivalent of the day, the printing press. The ideas of the French Revolution spread across the Ottoman realm like a plague, helping further undermine an already tottering empire. But Arab Nationalism and Arab Socialism, which emanated from the ideas of the French Revolution, were never able to develop in the proper fashion. This talk explains this phenomenon, including the Pan-Arabist Movement, the Ba'ath Party, Gamal Abdul Nasser, terrorism, and the current upheaval known as the Arab Spring. This talk is based off one of the lectures from the course I teach at Norwalk Community College for the Lifetime Learners Institute, Iraq: A History.
Many Americans are unaware that Iraq, as a modern nation among the family of nations, turned just 80 years old on October 3, 2012. The British Mandate ended on October 3, 1932, enabling Iraq to join the family of nations as a member state of the League of Nations. Hardly sovereign, it was still a fixture of British imperialism. Beginning with the British East India Company in 1763, this talk traces eventual British hegemony in the face of a tottering Ottoman Empire. Will include the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence; 1916 Sykes/Picot Agreement; the Balfour Declaration; the 1920 San Remo Conference; 1920 Treaty of Sevres; and the Treaty of Lausanne, 1923. Palestine and the formation of Turkey will also be discussed. Iraq is a product of colonial aspirations which has produced a jumble of conflicting grievances that are the result of a gross disregard for clannish affiliations, tribal associations, religious differences, and ethnic passions.
This talk is every bit as much a current event as it is a history presentation. Beginning with the Eisenhower Administration's "Atoms For Peace" program during the 1950s, the progression of Tehran's atomic program will be charted, beginning with the Shah to the current Fundamentalist Government. Included will be references to Israel's nuclear capability.
The gap between Sunnis and Shias, which has lasted for centuries, seems to be a divide too cavernous to bridge. Yet, through strife, pestilence, foreign occupation, and war, the Islamic religion has survived. This talk examines the founding of the Islam in the 7th century and resulting split that has plagued the religion ever since.
Military History
The Assyrian Empire used the chariot in war. A driver could, at times, drop off several Assyrian warriors to fight as foot soldiers, then drive back into the fray to pick up his charges and shuttle them off to another front. In 1965, Huey helicopters, at Ia Drang valley, dropped off troops from the 1st Air Cavalry Division (Airmobile) to engage North Vietnamese Regulars; then, flew back in the pick them up. The basic idea of using transportation to move troops on and off the battlefield is not new. The Assyrian chariot driver in 800 B.C. is performing the same function as an Army aviator in 1965. The basic premise is the same, the technology is different. This talk will chart mobility in war, focusing on the Assyrian Army; the Mongol Cavalry and Army Aviation and the Airmobility concept.
The United States Army's first sojourn into airpower, 1861. From 1861 to 1863, static balloons were used for the purposes of aerial observation and the aerial direction of artillery fire. A number of firsts in American aviation history occurred here: June 17, 1861, Thaddeus Lowe lifted off from the Columbia Armory in Washington, D.C., and through a telegrapher, transmitted his observations from 1,000 feet; a recipient was Abraham Lincoln, making him the first head-of-state to receive an electronic message sent from an aircraft to the ground. September 24, 1861, Falls Church, Virginia, General William Ferrar Smith, orders up a balloon for the purposes of the aerial direction of artillery fire. November 11, 1861, Lowe lifted off from the George Washington Parke Custis, a flattop carrier on Mattawoman Creek. The future was in the wind . . . Yet, most of the Union Army officer corps was too reactionary to accept such technology and by the summer of 1863, the Balloon Corps was dissolved.
World War I
World War I is the most important event in human history in the last one hundred years. We live the way we do today because of World War I; inspired, as it was, by the Pandora's Box of change unleashed by the French Revolution that ran rife across Europe like a plague. Change which spelled the end of monarchies that had been in power for centuries; change which irrevocably recast society, redefining servility within the new class structures of capitalist society, spurred by and attendant to the snowballing of the Industrial Revolution; the brewing power of virulent nationalism; the unbridled pursuit of colonialism; and the growing sophistication of man's ability to wage war. Starting point is the French Revolution and follows the panoply of events that led to the Guns of August in 1914.
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, the Countess Sophie in Sarajevo, June 28, 1914. Explains the assassination and its impact. Follows the behind-the-scenes political maneuvering involving Austria-Hungary, Germany, Serbia, Czarist Russia, France, and Britain, which plunged the world into war. Brings in a cast of characters featuring Czar Nicholas II of Russia; Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany; German Chancellor Theobald von Bethman-Hollweg; Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria-Hungary; Count Leopold von Berchtold, Austrian Foreign Minister; Count Franz Conrad von Hetzendorf, Austrian Chief of Staff; Sergei Sazonov, and Russian Foreign Minister… these and others are the personalities who starred in the tragicomic opera of events in the final moments of peace, consigning first Europe and then the globe to Armageddon.
World War II
On June 6, 1944, 156,000 American, British, Canadian, and Free French troops dropped by parachute, crash-landed by glider, or hit the beaches at Normandy. This talk explores the reasons for the greatest amphibious operation in military history. This presentation will answer such questions as why was Operation: OVERLORD mounted? What was the importance of the landings? What part did it play in the final defeat of the Third Reich? And most important, what was D-Day's impact on the Cold War? Talk will include an overview of the war and the events leading up to June 6, 1944.
Biographies
The Fuhrer of the Thousand-Year Reich, which lasted only twelve years. A practitioner of Fascism who, like Edward Bernays, raised propaganda to an art form. His Mein Kampf was the national socialist bible of bigotry, oppression, despotism, and conquest. Born Austrian, he became a German citizen in 1932. One of the first politicians to campaign by airplane. With the utmost Austrian courtesy, he would kiss the hand of any woman he was introduced to; and yet, in the same breath, order the extermination of millions of Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, and other so-called untermensch. Hitler symbolizes a national forfeiture of democratic ideals and high cultural and societal standards when a people prostitute their faith in themselves to indulge a larger-than-life figure who would lead them into Valhalla; a modern-day deity of hatred who was everything to some and in the end was nothing to all is a warning sign for those ready to follow the teachings of a false prophet.
A member of the C.P.I. or Committee of Public Information for the Wilson Administration in World War I, Bernays helped to sell the fiction for public consumption that the Great War was fought for Democracy. He will use the same techniques in peacetime to become America’s Father of Public Relations. Bernays was a master of the manufacture of consent. He will be one of the major contributors of the Consumer Revolution: channeling the American collective mind away from buying what it needs to buying what it wants. He was one of the most influential Americans during the entire 20th century. Edward Bernays was a nephew of Sigmund Freud.
President Harry Truman once observed, "Eleanor Roosevelt was not America's First Lady, but the First Lady of the world." This talk will span this most fascinating character's life from October 1884 to her death on November 1962. Eleanor was the first First Lady to address a presidential convention. During her twelve years in the White House, she gave 348 press conferences; wrote 60 features for the nation's leading magazines; opened up the Democratic party to the Black constituency; she was one of the co-authors of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights; her husband, FDR received 31 honorary degrees; Eleanor, 35. Mrs. Roosevelt helped to set the standard for her fellow Americans to follow with regards to helping the unemployed, fighting racial discrimination, improving the lot of women; while at the same time showing that a myriad of accomplishments are possible in the face of adversity. Eleanor Roosevelt… a woman for all seasons.
A most remarkable and inspirational human being who would go on to overcome deafness and blindness to become a world-class speaker and author of a dozen books. Yet unbeknownst to many Americans, Helen Keller supported women’s health and hygiene, was a booster of Eugenics, and was an ardent socialist. She campaigned for Eugene Debs for the presidency, was anti-capitalist, pro-worker, and anti-war, and supported Lenin’s revolution in 1917. Handouts provided for this talk include examples of Ms. Keller’s writings as a socialist.
Born in Gori, Georgia as Joseph Vissarionovich Djuhashvili. An early member of the Bolshevik chapter of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. The consummate backroom politician and manipulator par excellence, he will rise through the ranks and outmaneuver Leon Trotsky to become Lenin’s heir. His program of Socialism in One Country was actually an agenda for State Capitalism: “We will accomplish in 25 years what took America a hundred.” Starting in 1927, he will chart a course of forced industrialization that will take a backward peasant economy to an atomic bomb in a generation… at a cost of millions of lives. To the extent that Soviet industrial production will be one of the biggest secrets for Allied victory in World War II. Indeed, if anyone’s photo should be in a dictionary next to the word Totalitarianism, it should be Joseph Stalin’s.
One of many emerging from the 19th century as a champion of Women's Rights. Ms. Anthony was not only a suffragette, but an abolitionist as well. Born into a Quaker family, she will become a relentless campaigner to make her gender the political equal of Men. Susan B. Anthony can best be summed up with the motto from the short-lived weekly newspaper published by Anthony and her sidekick Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less."
Most books, articles, and presentations concerning Nazi Germany cover the years 1933–1945. But what of the formative years 1919–1934? By contrast, coverage is lacking. Especially when dealing with such personalities as Ernst Rohm. Rohm was a World War I veteran and a founding member of the Nazi Party. He was an early ally and confidant of Adolf Hitler; and co-founder and later commander of the Sturmabteilung or Stormtroopers, the SA. Rohm became a rampant homosexual at age 25 and was able to address Hitler as “Adolf.” As a leading member of the latter “radical” section of the Nazi movement, Rohm became considered at threat and was violently purged, as was many of the SA leadership on the evening of June 30–July 1, 1934; the infamous Night of the Long Knives. Following this purge, Heinrich Himmler's SS took its place as Hitler's party guard and would become state within a state. But Ernst Rohm is that forgotten Nazi in the early years of the Nazi movement, an indispensable asset for Hitler in his rise to power.
Series
American Empire: Grand Republic to Corporate State, Part 1:
Grand Republic to Corporate State, Part I: This eight week series is an eight-week course taught for the Lifetime Learners Institute at Norwalk Community College in Norwalk, Connecticut. Series can be presented in its entirety, in parcels or with each talk chosen for the purposes of a single presentation. "Click here" for the description and syllabus.
American Empire: Grand Republic to Corporate State, Part 2:
This eight-week series is an eight-week course taught for the Lifetime Learners Institute at Norwalk Community College in Norwalk, Connecticut. Series can be presented in its entirety, in parcels or with each talk chosen for the purposes of a single presentation. "Click here" for the description and syllabus.
American Gulag
2019 marks the 400th anniversary of Dutch traders bringing the first 20 Black "laborers" to North America, landing them at Jamestown. Thus began the bondage of a people transshipped from their homeland to an alien environment and then, consigned to the hell of forced labor. The resulting network of plantations was, in reality, a concentration camp system that was the engine of American Agrarian Capitalism. A vile system of exploitation practiced many more years under the Stars and Stripes than under the Stars and Bars. A mechanism of restraint that consigned unpaid toilers to an endless purgatory of servitude; thus, setting the stage for the resulting scourge of Racism, together with its poisonous progeny, White Supremacy. Four hundred years after the advent of America's Original Sin, the Black Man has yet to overcome the status of Second Class Citizenship. "Click here" for series description and syllabus.
Communism
This eight-week course taught at Norwalk Community College for the Lifetime Learners Institute in Norwalk Connecticut, traces the doctrine of Communism, from the French Revolution to Marx and Engels; to Lenin; to Stalin; to Mao Tse-tung, as well as other theorists such as Ho Chi Minh, Milovan Djilas, Tito, etc. Series can be presented in its entirety or in abbreviated form or as single presentations. "Click here" for description and syllabus.
Revolt of the Planters
The Russian Revolution
The upheaval that led to the demise of the Romanovs was one of the decisive events of the 20th century. Lenin's Bolshvik Revolution would, in the end, result in the Stalinist State. This, in turn, would see to the rise of the Soviet Union as one of the globe's major industrial powers, to the extent that Soviet industrial power would be one of the secret keys for Allied victory over Nazi Germany. "Click here" for series description and syllabus. This eight-week series is taught as a course for the Lifetime Learners Institute at Norwalk Community College in Norwalk, Connecticut. The series may be presented in its entirety, as single topics or as an abbreviated or shortened series.
Third Reich, Part 1: The Nazi Revolution, 1919-1934.
This eight-week series is a course taught for the Lifetime Learners Institute at Norwalk Community College in Norwalk, Connecticut. The series focuses on Germany from the Confederation of the Rhine to Hitler's purge of Ernst Rohm and the leadership of the Storm Trooper leadership, the Night of the Long Knives, June 30-July 1, 1934. Series can be presented in its entirety, in parcels or as single talks. "Click here" for series description and syllabus.
Third Reich, Part 2: The Nazi State.
This eight-week series is a course taught for the Lifetime Learners Institute at Norwalk Community College at Norwalk, Connecticut. This series is a follow on from Third Reich, Part 1, The Nazi Revolution, 1919-1934. The Nazi State dissects Nazi Germany, delving into Hitler's Reich politically, economically, socially. . . The series may be presented in its entirety, in parcels or as single talks. "Click here" for series description and syllabus.
Women's Right to Vote
2020 marks the centennial of the 19th Amendment, the Women's Right to Vote. This four-talk set commemorates this significant event in American political history. Please "click here" for series syllabus and descriptions: