New M.A. in History at Universidad Francisco Marroquin, Guatemala.

Envio Web Maestria Historia.jpg I am very happy to learn that Universidad Francisco Marroquín has a new MA in History (official website in Spanish).

It seems that the program will be leaded by the Sociologist Carlos Sabino and the Institute of Political Studies and International Relations – link in Spanish (from where I got my BA). The focus of the MA is in the teaching of methodological methods to research history topics and current historiography.

Some of the courses they will offer are:

Methodology and Research Skills
History of Political Thought
History of Guatemala I, II
History of Latin America
Economic History I
History of the 20th Century

Some of its faculty are:

Cox, Glenn David: M. A. Pedagogy and Human Development; University of California. B. A. History; University of California.
Sabino, Carlos: PhD in Social Sciences; Universidad Central de Venezuela. BA Sociology; Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires.

The MA seems to be focused on the methodological research skills in History. I am certainly not a huge fan of Methodologies in Research and would have many things to question in regard to the focus of this M.A. Also, the Euro-centric structure of the Program is something I really do not like.

This is a great step for UFM and Guatemala. I am certain that in the following years we’ll see a change of how the M.A. programs of Social Sciences and History will evolve from such Methodology centered and Eurocentric studies into new fields of Global History, Migration Studies, Transnational Politics, International Commerce & Globalization.

I celebrate this new M.A. program in a country that needs the knowledge of Researchers and Postgraduate students urgently.

Concorde’s last day in Global History

Video: Concorde’s last flight.

There are moments in history in which the World Order changed and historians are always trying to get them accepted and applauded by their colleagues. Those specific moments in history may be not seen immediately but until enough time has passed to understand the direct and indirect effects that shaped the course of History.

Many of these moments are the product of technological innovations that changed the way humans lived. One of them could be October 24, 2003 when three BA Concordes made the last commercial flights in history: G-BOAG flew from New York to London; G-BOAE made a return flight to Edinburgh; and G-BOAF flew around the Bay of Biscay. All three circled over London before landing within minutes of each other at Heathrow Airport.

The relevance of this event may not yet be so evident. However, we can be certain that the impact that had the catastrophe of a Concorde near Paris in July 2000 is going to determine the future of space flights. Specially after the last flight of Atlantis (the last Space Shuttle of the United States) in July 21, 2011.

The blog The Modern Historian posted a great/short overview of Concorde’s history and here is it:

During the late 1950s, aircraft manufacturers around the world started working on designs for supersonic passenger jets. The costs for such projects were so prohibitive that few of them progressed beyond the design stage. In the early 1960s, the British Aircraft Corporation, which had inherited the Type 223 supersonic transport (SST) project from the Bristol Aeroplane approached the French Sud Aviation, who were working on the Super-Caravelle SST, with an offer to co-operate on a joint project.The result of this co-operation was Concorde, which made its maiden flight in 1969. By this time, Concorde only had one compettitor, the Russian Tupolev Tu-144, but cold war tensions and the crash of a Tu-144 at the 1973 Paris Air show meant that it was Concorde that attracted orders from the major airlines. Nevertheless, the oil crisis of late 1973, environmental concerns about nervousness about sonic booms (the noise the aircraft made as it broke the sound barrier) resulted in the cancellation of all the orders except those from the national airlines of France and the United Kingdom. These orders for ten aircraft each still required substantial government subsidies to keep the project alive.In spite of these setbacks, Air Franceand British Airways (BA) started scheduled flights using Concorde in 1976. Although other airlines occasionally leased the aircraft, the high operation costs meant that supersonic travel was only feasible for the most profitible routes. Nevertheless, to continue running the services required high ticket prices, the continued government funding in the case of Air France and the sale of the British fleet of aircraft to BA at a knock-down price.All this changed following the crash of a Concorde near Paris in July 2000. The year long grounding of all the Concordes contributed to the decision taken by both airlines to withdraw the aircraft. On 27th June 2003, an Air France Concorde flew for the last time and on 24th October that same year three BA Concordes made the last commercial flights by the aircraft: G-BOAG flew from New York to London; G-BOAE made a return flight to Edinburgh; G-BOAF flew around the Bay of Biscay. All three circled over London before landing within minutes of each other at Heathrow Airport.

Againts Greed and Crony Capitalism

“This economic system that they call Capitalism has no moral or ethical core to it.” Michael Moore

This time, the American Sensationalist Director Michael Moore was right. He explained in one sentence what thousands of men are right now protesting against in the streets and we support them. Why?

Capitalism is a social system that is based upon the foundations of individual freedom, respect for individual rights and property rights, and reason as man’s only mean to achieve their goals. However, the current economic, political and economic system in which large parts of the world are now living is not really a Capitalist economy.

The correct name for this system is “crony capitalism” and its foundations are privileges, irrational greed, expropriation, and violation of human rights (individual rights and the rights to property). It is this system that we need to fight against and fight a moral revolution against to. In the following video, you’ll hear a wonderful explanation of what that Irrational Greed is all about. The second video, is very interesting and portrays an interesting image of how TNCs (Transnational Corporations) have established Billion Worth Business all over the world without caring for what should matter most to them: Their Consumers.

I hope you enjoy them and understand that we are together in this fight,

Video: Milton Friedman On what is commonly understood as greed and on what is the result of ethical profit (via: Casey Hendrickson)

Stossel On Crony Capitalism Part 1/6

Making a Moral Revolution. From 1773 to 2011.

The protests of the groups named 99% seem to continue igniting fury all over the world since they occupied Wall Street at Liberty Square in Manhattan’s financial district. By now, they claim at OccupywallSt.org that the protests are being held in more than 1500 cities around the world (virtual map). In all those cities the protests have taken different shapes and discourses. They seem to cry for different things. Their leaders emphasize their own agendas and it has been hard for me to identify a common single demand.

Curiously, most of these protesters most surely do not recall that on a day like today more than 200 years ago a public meeting similar to theirs was first organized. It was in October 16, 1773 that the First public meeting of protest against the Tea Act took place in Philadelphia. These protesters demanded from their rulers (The British Parliament) a respect of their rights to property and individual rights. They asked for the Parliament to respect their right to elect their own Representatives and to be taxed by those representatives only.

Three years later, after their demands were not listened by the British government the United States Declaration of Independence was signed by the representatives of thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain. It was the first Declaration ever written in history that considered as its core that all men had unalienable Rights and that among these rights are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Since then, these rights were slowly forgotten and captured by government. Slowly, the sons and daughters of these revolutionary protesters forgot the reasons that created such a wonderful Declaration. Now, the protests of the Occupy movements face a similar contradiction. As The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights argued in their article What the Tea Party Movement Must Stand For, it is necessary for them to organize against one single claim: They should demand for a Moral Revolution in which their government returns to them their rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

It is until now Ayn Rand the only philosopher who has provided a moral defense for these revolutionaries. As she wrote in Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal,

“The world crisis of today is a moral crisis–and nothing less than a moral revolution can resolve it: a moral revolution to sanction and complete the political achievement of the American Revolution. . . . [YOU] must fight for capitalism, not as a “practical’ issue, not as an economic issue, but, with the most righteous pride, as a moral issue. That is what capitalism deserves, and nothing less will save it.”