o businesses of varied sizes are set forth and their working illustrated."We note with appreciation the author's use of "flags" as indic.itors.Our experience of these handy and ingenious little devices datesfrom their first introduction in the States, and we can endorse all that"he says in their favour.

Yet it is doubtful whether since theintroduction of the typewriter there has been an invention so beneficialto modern business as the card-index system.

The progress of the card system in England has•undoubtedly been very slow; a fact which may be due primarilyto the constitutional conservatism of English business men, althoughprobably it is partly accounted for by the natural irritation and reaction•caused by the hustling but not always tactful enthusiasm of the manyAmerican salesmen who for several years past have been its principalmissionaries.

So far as we are aware, this is the first adequatebook on the card system which has been published in this country.In the main, information on the subject has only been procurablefrom the catalogues and booklets (many of them excellent andinforming; issued by the manufacturers of the impedimenta of thesystem,

Ironmonger,3rd October1908.Mr.Kaiserisapastmaster__inallthatappertainsto carding,filing,andindexing systems.

BACK OF CARDS 188, 246, 263

357 It is this great difficulty involved in consistency which is responsiblefor the fact that however much we may try or desire to do otherwise,the best man to run a system effectively is he who has devised it,''^for however careful and painstaking we may be in trying to repro-duce his system accurately on paper, these reproductions are merelyabstracts of the original ; reproduction can never be absolutelycomplete. We may reproduce a system on paper in clearly markedoutlines, we may add within the general configuration all the inter-woven details, all of which may be concise and manageable, butbeyond the confines of the system there are blank margins in alldirections, which cannot be filled in until such cases arise as willcompel us to extend the ramifications of our system into thesemargins. It is not possible to express these ramifications before-hand on paper, but they no doubt have been allowed for in themind of the originator of the system, even supposing that he is notalways conscious of it. It is precisely these undefined marginswhich in most cases put consistency on its trial ; hence consistency,already a difficult factor in cases where the deviser deals with hisown system, is doubly so in other cases, for the unexpressed rami-fications which remain in suspense until called into being by unfore-seen circumstances can only be depicted consistently with therest of the system in the mind of the originator, who will have tobe consulted in each case for the purpose.

It is prudent to maturewell before improvements are adopted. Improvements rashlyintroduced may give cause for regret when it is too late to turn back.

don't supervise too little, otherwise your staff will soonbecome prolific in the production and application of all manner ofimprovements, which must eventually prove fatal ; superviseenough to assure adequate continuity and consistency in the system,and to leave your staff sufficient of their individuality to make theirwork interesting to them.

the supervisormust therefore be prepared to carry the system a step furtherwhenever occasion arises. There is therefore an opportunity tobring individuality into play. If we are not prepared to assert ourindividuality within and without the limits set by the system, wemay depend upon it that our collaborators or subordinates willassert theirs, consciously or unconsciously, and we shall find inthe end that our system has been distorted in all directions, withoutnecessarily transgressing our rules, although the latter will be buta matter of time.

The measure of control is also the measure of responsibility. Respon-sibility without control is a hopeless proposition.

System without consistency is an impossibility. 356But let us realise what a difficult matter it is tobe consistent. We are surrounded by changes and inconsistencieseverywhere. Language above all, which we must needs constantlyuse, is not a perfect instrument for giving expression to consistency.We may have our rules all nicely worded and filed in the key cabinet,but if we have not taken the greatest pains in constructing them,if we have not subjected each one to the most searching criticismbefore they are applied, v/e shall find sooner or later that in one

To run a system effectively, we must be prepared 355Servant to uphold it ourselves, we must give the examplein effective work, we must be the first to submitto it although we supply the directing energy to run it. If we thinkourselves above our own system, then it has already ceased to exist.We must bear in mind therefore that any rules we may make, anyinstructions we may give, any supervision we may effect, applyto ourselves equally with others. We may be the masters of thesystem, we are also its servants, but for all that we need not beslaves to it.

It is therefore best to prepare a Daily List

A four drawer cabinetis as a rule ample for the purposes of the key cabinet.

Business In former years the account ledger representedLedger

Chronological registers or directories may beRegisters used for a variety of purposes in almost everyoffice, not only as future reminders^ but alsoas records of past events.

By this plan the subjects of the books may be scattered, but thatis no disadvantage, for they are brought together by the cards.

For larger collections of books it may be thought preferable to use a libraryclassification, such as Mr. Dewey's Decimal Classification, but I doubt very muchif the gain will be in proportion to the additional labour involved.

Summaries*

Since leaving office in 2021, former President Donald J. Trump has spent more than $100 million on lawyers and other costs related to fending off various investigations, indictments and his coming criminal trials, according to a New York Times review of federal records.

There is a reason that the abolitionist Frederick Douglass said that between the Christianity of this land (America) and the Christianity of Christ, he recognized the “widest possible difference.”

Whether this Bible is an example of Christian nationalism I will leave to others. It is at least an example of Christian syncretism, a linking of certain myths about American exceptionalism and the Christian faith. This is the American church’s consistent folly: thinking that we are the protagonists in a story that began long before us and whose main character is in fact the Almighty.

The term 'knowledge work' appeared in The Landmarks of Tomorrow (1959) by Peter Drucker.[12] Drucker later coined the term 'knowledge worker' in The Effective Executive[13] in 1966. Later, in 1999, he suggested that "the most valuable asset of a 21st-century institution, whether business or non-business, will be its knowledge workers and their productivity."

I use “we” loosely because Swisher’s intended audience is not you or me, but instead those with power: she writes about and for them. Over the course of a long and storied career closely reporting on the tech industry and its titans, she has aped their motions, sat at their dinner tables, drunk their wine, gone to their weird parties, played with their baubles, repeated their lies, and offered them counsel. Swisher may style herself as Silicon Valley’s critic laureate, but she’s much closer to the court fool.

‘speak truth to power,’

By insisting the issue with Uber was largely cultural, Swisher ends up affirming the myth that Uber was not only an inevitable but ultimately good innovation, a few bad apples notwithstanding.

In fact, Uber’s top lawyer—Tony West, a Black man—has been the public face of Uber’s campaign against laws that would force the company to pay livable wages to its largely Black and brown workforce.

“white male homogeneity”

Sam Harnett’s 2020 paper “Words Matter: How Tech Media Helped Write Gig Companies Into Existence” remains one of the best accounts of how swaths of the media enthusiastically generated on-demand propaganda for the tech industry, directly setting the stage for these firms to exploit, codify, and expand legal loopholes that largely exempted them from regulation as they raided their users for data and generated billions in revenue. Such intellectual acquiescence would, as Harnett writes, “pave the way for a handful of companies that represent a tiny fraction of the economy to have an outsized impact on law, mainstream corporate practices, and the way we think about work.”

The long and short of it is that Swisher is not a good journalist—or, framed more generously, that she thrived in an industry with remarkably low standards for which we are still paying the price. For decades, tech journalism and criticism has primarily consisted of glowing gadget reviews, laudatory profiles, and reprinted press releases, all of it colored by Silicon Valley’s self-aggrandizing vision of itself as a laboratory of a brighter future.

All missing letters are charged out anonymously in theusual way, the slips being marked missing.

The last card representsthe reverse side of the previous card and shows how to utilise the back of cardswhen necessary.

Correspondence

163

A very effective way of differentiation is themarking of the upper edge of the cards with ink,either its whole length or any portion of it.

No provision is made for charging out cards, becausethey are not supposed to be withdrawn at any time.

Thus the name written on the tab will indicate theposition of the guide among the cards, that is : the tab bearsthe term or name on the card immediately following the guide.

Frequent re- arrangements are a distinct disadvantage,for with every change the filer loses much time in becoming familiaragain with the new positions.

Kegisters refer to the materials and help tolocate them, indexes refer to the information contained in thesematerials. Ag their function, so their construction is quite distinct.Both however treat the same materials, only in different ways.In some offices no indexes may be required.

The most important portion of the face of the card is the left uppercorner, and this place should always be reserved for the subjectof the register.

A central registercertainly offers considerable advantages, it is a great saving incards and labour, the making of corrections which is a consider-able item is reduced to one register instead of many which in itsturn will reduce the percentage of errors to a minimum.

On the other hand the alphabetical register of firm names mustbe regarded not only as indispensable but as occupying a some-what different position from the others.

It was said (76) that it isimpossible to devise a system wliich could be applied universally,the card registers give a very clear illustration of tliis.

As the functionof the caU number is separation, so the function of references isconcentration.

AU references are indicated by the word " See," " See also,"" compare," etc. preceding the term to which reference is made.

It is the object of crossreferences to bring these materials together again when required.

Now the strength of consecutive numbers undoubtedly lies inthe fact that there cannot be any gaps, whatever the size of afile, the series of numbers is always complete.

registering

filing

indexing

registersor directories

recording.

cataloguing

The card system suffers at presentunder one great disadvantage, it has no fixed terminology.

Devising Once a proper system has been devised, it requiresCard Systems

Elaborate library classifications were either inapplicable or much 74too complicated and therefore unmanageable. Their applicationto business was out of the question. Something simple, easy toimderstand and easy to handle was required. This was foundin the numerical arrangement. The numerical classification inspite of its arbitrary character will always have this advantagethat it ensures accuracy with the least trouble, and this is stillmore the case where large quantities are handled. It was quitenatural therefore that this should be preferred for business purposes.As there are many sets of things arranged numerically, it isnecessary to distinguish one set from the other, so as to know towhat set a given number refers. This is done by affixing dis-tinguishing initials to the numbers, each class being assigned somecharacteristic initial of its own.

But by means of the cards, these materials canbe arranged and re-arranged in almost endless variety, we mayclassify them roughly or minutely, we may arrange them by thealphabet, by numbers, trades or professions, territories, we maylimit ourselves to certain trades or territories only

The card system has undoubtedly come to stayand will more and more replace the book system.

It must not be forgotten that the directaim of the card system is : maximum of work with minimumof labour (60).

It will be seen from the foregoing that care isrequired in the appKcation of the card system,and that neglect must sooner or later lead to failure. There wasindeed a time when it seemed doubtful whether the card systemwould survive the first attempts. It was even tried and abandonedby some. These early failures were in the main due to the absenceof expert labour and to the higher order of accuracy required ascompared with the book system. The systems were not thenplanned out with that care that is bestowed upon them now. Onesystem would be started and presently there would be a decisionto alter it so as to fall in with riper experience. In the absenceof one system consistently adhered to the files soon got into achaotic condition until at last they had to be abandoned, for infact they had become useless.

It is there-fore to be expected that the initial cost of the card system is nota fair criterion of its cost when in working order.

Accuracy This is one of the chief claims of the card system. 63To increase accuracy in fUing, the materials arealways arranged numerically. We thereby approach as nearlyas possible to mathematical exactness. The advantages of thecard system become more and more apparejit as the files increasein bulk, and accuracy must remain a constant factor in aU workconnected with it. It will also bring its reward in the smoothworking of the files and the immediate accessibility of anythingrequired. In accuracy might be included consistency, which isindispensable for effective work (356).

Labour saving therefore means systematic application of expertlabour.

The development of the card system and itsmore universal adoption within recent years isundoubtedly due in the mail to the development in modernbusiness and factory organisation ; it may be regarded as anoffspring of manufacture in quantities. (Massenfabrikation, Gross-industrie.) The recognised principle in manufacture in quantities ismaximum of output with minimum of labour. The means to attainthis end is specialisation, which in its turn yields greater precisionand accuracy as it^ result. All this is equally applicable to thecard system, and the last factor, greater precision and accuracy,is one of its most conspicuous claims.

Card Each drawer should be provided with a catchDrawers

It requires but a moment's reflection to perceivethat even the vertical files with the correspondence binders arebut an imitation of a set of cards, on a larger scale. The set ofcards can fairly be regarded as the basis of the entire system,hence it is properly called the card system.

When the card guidesare also used for classification purposes (144) a specially strongguide should be selected, as their replacing entails a great dealof re-writing.

The quality of the cardshould correspond to the performances required of it. Cardsused for permanent registers or indexes should be of good strongquality, for temporary work a cheaper card can usually be employed.

All cards should be matliematically uniform insize and uniform in thickness, both the indi-vidual card in itself and card as compared with card. The cardsshould he perfectly flat, and if bent, must on release at once assumethe original position. These conditions are necessary for thequick handling of quantities of cards.

All screws used on the face of the drawers should be sunk in.Round headed screws are apt to tear the skin of the fingers.

It is best to have the verticalcabinets and the card cabinets entirely separate.

The charging cabinet, which provides a system, by whichmaterials withdrawn from their places can be debitedto the person having possession of them for the timebeing, that is : each article is charged out to whoevercalls for it and is charged off when returned.

In each class the individual articles or the folders containing anumber of articles belonging to the same firm are numbered con-secutively, CI, C2, Tl, T2 etc. that is : a new series of consecutivenumbers is started with each initial letter. The correspondenceof Smith & Co. may for instance be in a folder marked C34, thecatalogues of Jones Bros, may be numbered T89. But theremay be a hundred letters to and from Smith & Co. and a dozencatalogues from Jones Bros, so that it will be necessary to dividefurther until each specific article will have a specific numberby which it can be quoted exclusively reserved to it. This isdone by suffixing the date to the previous numbers thus : C34-3VII7or T89-1906 etc. The former refers to a letter of Smith & Co.dated July the third 1907, the latter refers to a catalogue ofJones Bros, of 1906. No matter how large the files will becomein time, the meaning of these numbers will remain the same, andthere can be no other articles bearing these numbers. If a numberor numbers refer to more than one article, confusion is invariablythe result

The text in this book is numbered by paragraphs and where asubject is treated in more than one place, the numbers in bracketsindicate the additional paragraphs bearing on the subject underdiscussion.

It is best not to trust too much tomemory until the routine vrork is thoroughly mastered.

Volume 2 will be almost entirelydevoted to the work of indexing in the sense of analysing literatureand will go more fully into the question of classification and themanagement of guide cards. The present volume is confined asfar as practicable to the use of plain cards. Tabulated cards,methods of tabulating and the application of tabulated cards topractical business will be dealt with in volume 3, " The CardSystem at the Factory."

Male orphans were taught to hold a musket as soon as they werephysically able.44

As Reverend Bolzius had observed, if slaves were encouraged to“breed like animals,” then poor whites could not reproduce at the same rateand hold on to their land or their freedom.

By 1760, only 5 percent of white Georgians owned even a singleslave, while a handful of families possessed them in the hundreds. JonathanBryan was the perfect embodiment of the “Slave Merchants” whoOglethorpe had warned would dominate the colony.59

In 1750, settlers were formally granted the right toown slaves.58

Georgia also instituted a policy of keeping the land “tail-male,”which meant that land descended to the eldest male child. This feudal rulebound men to their families. The tail-male provision protected heirs whosepoor fathers might otherwise feel pressure to sell their land.53

In the largerscheme of things, his reform philosophy recognized that weak anddesperate men could be led to choose a path that dictated against their owninterests. A man might sell his land for a glass of rum; debt and idlenesswere always a temptation.52

ProslaveryGeorgians were not above accusing Oglethorpe of running a prisoncolony.50

trustees: “to relieve the distressed.” Instead of offering a sanctuary forhonest laborers, Georgia would become an oppressive regime, promoting“the misery of thousands in Africa” by permitting a “free people” to be“sold into perpetual Slavery.”48

A NorthCarolina proprietor, John Colleton, observed in Barbados that poor whiteswere called “white slaves” by black slaves; it struck him that the samecontempt for white field hands prevailed in the southern colonies in NorthAmerica.47

Many contemporaries connected slavery to English idleness. WilliamByrd weighed in on the ban against slavery in Georgia in a letter to aGeorgia trustee. He saw how slavery had sparked discontent among poorwhites in Virginia, who routinely refused to “dirty their hands with Labourof any kind,” preferring to steal or starve rather than work in the fields.Slavery ruined the “industry of our White People,” he confessed, for theysaw a “Rank of Poor Creatures below them,” and detested the thought ofwork out of a perverse pride, lest they might “look like slaves.”

Slavery, however, could not be kept apart from future projections inGeorgia. After allowing South Carolina to send over slaves to fell trees andclear the land for the town of Savannah, Oglethorpe came to regret thedecision. He made a brief trip to Charles Town, and returned to discoverthat in the interim the white settlers had grown “impatient of Labour andDiscipline.” Some had sold good food for rum punch. With drunkenesscame disease. And so, Oglethorpe wrote, the “Negroes who sawed for us”and encouraged white “Idleness” were sent back.46

Oglethorpe felt the disadvantaged could bereclaimed if they were given a fair chance.

He marveled at how the SouthCarolinians deluded themselves in believing they were safe, burdened asthey were with a large slave population—“stupid security,” he called it.

Having foughtas an officer under Prince Eugene of Savoy in the Austro–Turkish War of1716–18, he understood military discipline. This was how he came to trustin the power of emulation; he believed that people could be conditioned todo the right thing by observing good leaders. He shared food with thosewho were ill or deprived. Visiting a Scottish community north of Savannah,he refused a soft bed and slept outside on the hard ground with the men.More than any other colonial founder, Oglethorpe made himself one of thepeople, promoting collective effort.43

the colony’s motto, Non sibi sed aliis (Not for themselves, but for others)

According to Francis Moore, who visited the settlement in its secondyear of operation, two “peculiar” customs stood out: both alcohol and dark-skinned people were prohibited. “No slavery is allowed, nor negroes,”Moore wrote. As a sanctuary for “free white people,” Georgia “would notpermit slaves, for slaves starve the poor laborer.” Free labor encouragedpoor white men in sober cultivation and steeled them in the event they hadto defend the land from outside aggression. It also promised to cure settlersof that most deadly of English diseases, idleness.41

Conservative land policies limited individual settlers to a maximum offive hundred acres, thus discouraging the growth of a large-scale plantationeconomy and slave-based oligarchy such as existed in neighboring SouthCarolina. North Carolina squatters would not be found here either. Poorsettlers coming from England, Scotland, and other parts of Europe weregranted fifty acres of land, free of charge, plus a home and a garden.Distinct from its neighbors to the north, Georgia experimented with a socialorder that neither exploited the lower classes nor favored the rich. Itsfounders deliberately sought to convert the territory into a haven forhardworking families. They aimed to do something completelyunprecedented: to build a “free labor” colony.

under the direction of anambitious projector.

Explorers, amateurscientists, and early ethnologists like William Byrd all assumed—andunabashedly professed—that inferior or mismanaged lands bred inferior,ungovernable people.

He mused that colonization would have had a better outcomeif male settlers had been encouraged to intermarry with Indian women.Over two generations, the Indian stock would have improved, as a speciesof flower or tree might; dark skin blanched white, heathen ways dimmed.Here, Byrd was borrowing from the author John Lawson, who wrote in ANew Voyage to Carolina that men of lower rank gained an economicadvantage by marrying Native women who brought land to the union.

In a “porcivorous” country, people spent their days foragingand fornicating; when upset, they could be heard yelling out, “Flesh aliveand tear it.” It was their “favorite exclamation,” Byrd said. This bizarrecolloquialism suggested cannibalism, or perhaps hyenas surrounding a freshkill and devouring it. How could these carnivorous swamp monsters bethought of as English?37

The Mapp of Lubberland or the Ile of Lazye (ca. 1670) portrayed an imaginaryterritory in which sloth is contagious and normal men lack the will to work.British Print, #1953.0411.69AN48846001, The British Museum, London, England

When Byrd identified the Carolinians as residents of “Lubberland,” hedrew upon a familiar English folktale that featured one “Lawrence Lazy,”born in the county of Sloth near the town of Neverwork.

In milder weather they got as far as thinking aboutplunging a hoe into the ground.

Evenbefore his betrayal, though, he felt little identification with the colonists,writing that North Carolinians were the most “cowardly Blockheads[another word for lubber] that ever God created & must be used likenegro[e]s if you expect any good of them.”29

In an unexpected development, the proprietor Lord Shaftesbury came toCulpeper’s defense. He delivered an eloquent oration before the Court ofKing’s Bench, arguing that a stable government had never legally existed inNorth Carolina. Anticipating Locke’s Two Treatises of Government,Shaftesbury concluded that the colony remained effectively in a state ofnature. Without a genuine government, there could be no rebellion.Commentary like this merely underscored northern Carolina’s outlierstatus.26

The misnamed Culpeper’s Rebellion (1677–79) isparticularly instructive. In a contest with Thomas Miller, an ambitioustrader and tobacco planter who wanted to crack down on smugglers, collectcustoms duties, and gain favor with proprietors, Thomas Culpeper, asurveyor, sided with the poorer settlers.

By 1700, we should note, slaves comprised half the population of thesouthern portion of the Carolina colony, an imbalance that widened to 72percent by 1740. Beginning in 1714, a series of laws required that for everysix slaves an owner purchased, he had to acquire one white servant.Lamenting that the “white population do not proportionally multiply,”South Carolina lawmakers had one more reason to wish that a corps ofLeet-men and women had actually been formed. Encouraged to marry andmultiply, tied to the land, they might have provided a racial and class barrierbetween the slaves and the landed elites.13

“lazy lubbers,” meaning stupid, clumsy oafs,the word that came to describe the vagrant poor of Carolina.11

The Fundamental Constitutions was really a declaration of war againstpoor settlers.

unemployed men entitled to poor relief.

“Leet-men,” who were encouraged to marry andhave children but were tied to the land and to their lord.

A court of heraldry was added to this strange brew: in overseeingmarriages and maintaining pedigree, it provided further evidence of theintention to fix (and police) class identity.

The Fundamental Constitutions did more than endorse slavery. It was amanifesto promoting a semifeudalistic and wholly aristocratic society.

Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury,

Albemarle County, named after one of the proprietors, GeorgeMonck, Duke of Albemarle.

he authoredthe Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina (1669), which granted that“every Freeman in Carolina shall have ABSOLUTE POWER ANDAUTHORITY over his Negro Slaves.”

Slavery was thus a logicaloutgrowth of the colonial class system imagined by Hakluyt. It emergedfrom three interrelated phenomena: harsh labor conditions, the treatment ofindentures as commodities, and, most of all, the deliberate choice to breedchildren so that they should become an exploitable pool of workers.

Slavery was thus a logicaloutgrowth of the colonial class system imagined by Hakluyt. It emergedfrom three interrelated phenomena: harsh labor conditions, the treatment ofindentures as commodities, and, most of all, the deliberate choice to breedchildren so that they should become an exploitable pool of workers.

His rescue story perfectly mimicked a popular Scottish ballad ofthe day in which the beautiful daughter of a Turkish prince rescues anEnglish adventurer who is about to lose his head.

a farsexier fable in the dramatic rescue of John Smith by the “Indian princess”Pocahontas.

The best-known, most recent version of the story is the 1995 WaltDisney animated film. Strikingly beautiful, unnervingly buxom, and morelike a pop culture diva than a member of the Tsenacommacah tribe,Disney’s Pocahontas fabulously communes with nature, befriending araccoon, talking to a tree;

The word “Pilgrim” was not even popularized until1794.

The master of ceremonies was their Indian interpreter, Squanto, who hadhelped the English survive a difficult winter. Left out of this story is thedetail (not so minor) that Squanto only knew English because he had beenkidnapped and sold as a slave to an English ship’s captain.

we have the Pilgrims (a people who are celebrated atThanksgiving, a holiday that did not exist until the Civil War), who cameashore at Plymouth Rock (a place only designated as such in the lateeighteenth century). The quintessential American holiday was associatedwith the native turkey to help promote the struggling poultry industryduring the Civil War.

Exceptionalism emerges from a host of earlier myths of redemption andgood intentions. Pilgrims, persecuted in the Old World, brave the Atlanticdreaming of finding religious freedom on America’s shores; wagon trains ofhopeful pioneer families head west to start a new life. Nowhere else, we aremeant to understand, was personal freedom so treasured as it was in theAmerican experience. The very act of migration claims to equalize thepeople involved, molding them into a homogeneous, effectively classlesssociety.

And so the great American saga,as taught, excludes the very pertinent fact that after the 1630s, less than halfcame to Massachusetts for religious reasons.

The compression of history, the winnowing of history, may seem naturaland neutral, but it is decidedly not. It is the means by which grade schoolhistory becomes our standard adult history.

progress on the march

Monuments imperfectly record the past

These efforts were magnified as a result of promotional skillsdemonstrated by such organizations as the Colonial Dames, who worked toelevate the Mayflower Pilgrims and Winthrop’s Puritans into some of theforemost figures in our national memory.

History of the United States (1834)

the first volume of GeorgeBancroft’s widely praised History of the United States (1834) may be thebest example of how the Mayflower and Arbella washed ashore and seededthe ground where love of liberty bore its ripest fruit

Beyond the web of stories the founding generation itself wove, ourmodern beliefs have most to do with the grand mythmakers of thenineteenth century. The inspired historians of that period were nearly allNew Englanders; they outpaced all others in shaping the historicalnarrative, so that the dominant story of origins worked in their favor. That ishow we got the primordial Puritan narrative of a sentimental communityand a commendable work ethic.

most colonizing schemesthat took root in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British America werebuilt on privilege and subordination, not any kind of proto-democracy.

John Adams,heralded the first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, asan earlier and stronger model for an American patrician-patriarch.

Historical mythmaking is made possible only by forgetting.

waste people

And then themedia giants find new crises and the nation’s inherited disregard for classreboots, as the subject recedes into the background again.

Because of how history is taught, Americans tend toassociate Plymouth and Jamestown with cooperation rather than classdivision.

Wary investors and state officials had to beconvinced to take the plunge into a risky overseas venture. But mostimportant, it was a place into which they could export their ownmarginalized people.

promoters imagined America not as an Eden of opportunity but as a giantrubbish heap that could be transformed into productive terrain.

America’s class language and thinking began with the forceful imprint leftby English colonization.

How does a culture that prizes equality of opportunity explain, or indeedaccommodate, its persistently marginalized people?

How does a culture that prizes equality of opportunity explain, or indeedaccommodate, its persistently marginalized people?

Lest the reader misconstrue the book’s purpose, I want to make the pointunambiguously: by reevaluating the American historical experience in classterms, I expose what is too often ignored about American identity. But I’mnot just pointing out what we’ve gotten wrong about the past; I also want tomake it possible to better appreciate the gnawing contradictions still presentin modern American society.

It starts withthe rich and potent meaning that came with the different names given theAmerican underclass. Long before they were today’s “trailer trash” and“rednecks,” they were called “lubbers” and “rubbish” and “clay-eaters” and“crackers”—and that’s just scratching the surface.

Britishcolonists promoted a dual agenda: one involved reducing poverty back inEngland, and the other called for transporting the idle and unproductive tothe New World.

The hallowed American dream is thegold standard by which politicians and voters alike are meant to measurequality of life as each generation pursues its own definition of happinessunfettered by the restraints of birth (who your parents are) or station (theposition you start out from in the class system).

economic stratification createdby wealth and privilege.

eugenics

American exceptionalism, 7, 69, 190, 310, 318

Try the TOSEC archive for C64. You will also find that in the archive. I think they have a lot of those type-ins as .prg files so you can mount them in VICE and run them.

Dawn dweud: A study of colloquial and idiomatic welsh Ceri M. P. Jones

Words like quality and excellence are misapplied sorelentlessly that they border on meaningless.

while efficiency was a goal, quality was the goal.

Mistakes are part of creativity.

A subversion takes place in whichstreamlining the process or increasing production supplants the ultimate goal, with eachperson or group thinking they’re doing the right thing—when, in fact, they have strayed offcourse. When efficiency or consistency of workflow are not balanced by other equally strongcountervailing forces, the result is that new ideas—our ugly babies—aren’t afforded theattention and protection they need to shine and mature.

Katherine Sarafian,a producer who’s been at Pixar since Toy Story, tells me she prefers to envision triggering theprocess over trusting it—observing it to see where it’s faltering, then slapping it around a bitto make sure it’s awake. Again, the individual plays the active role, not the process itself. Or,to put it another way, it is up to the individual to remember that it’s okay to use the handle,just as long as you don’t forget the suitcase.

As Brad Bird, who joined Pixar as a director in 2000, likes to say, “The process eithermakes you or unmakes you.” I like Brad’s way of looking at it because while it gives theprocess power, it implies that we have an active role to play in it as well.

Once you’re aware of the suitcase/handle problem, you’ll see it everywhere. People glomonto words and stories that are often just stand-ins for real action and meaning. Advertiserslook for words that imply a product’s value and use that as a substitute for value itself.Companies constantly tell us about their commitment to excellence, implying that this meansthey will make only top-shelf products. Words like quality and excellence are misapplied sorelentlessly that they border on meaningless.