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Take a moment to read Frank Rich in the NYT. It never ceases to amaze me to discover the depths to which the right wing fat cats such as the Koch family will descend to protect and expand their interests at the expense of the very people who they are bankrolling (and shamelessly duping) to promote their "cause". Rich's piece led me both to the primary source for his discussion, as well as back in history to the grace-under-fire courage of JFK when his chips were also down. I was struck by how his words resonated today, with one major exception: this time the enemy really is within.
Real Americans are under siege once again, but as too often happens, they are being directed to a false enemy by the real enemies behind the curtain.
It was about a week ago that we saw the ruling throwing out California's Prop 8; that decision has now been appealed, and we will see, at some point in the future, how the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals handles the matter.
A couple of days later, I had a story up that walked through the ruling, describing the tactics used by the Prop 8 proponents, which, in the opinion of the Judge who looked at the evidence, were basically to try to scare Californians into thinking that gay people, once they're able to get gay married, will somehow now be free to evangelize your kids and make them gay, too.
In the course of answering comments on the several sites where the story is up, I noticed that there were those who felt the Bible should be guiding our thinking here...that if it did, we would be better off than where we are today, with all those immoral gay people running around free to do all those immoral gay things.
This led me to an obvious question: are those who have been using the Bible as a sort of "divining rod" to figure out who is immoral and who is not...actually any good at it?
The one he grew up in, not the one he helped create:
John Boehner grew up in an America ruled by FDR's Democratic majority. I grew up in an America ruled by Ronald Reagan's Republican majority. The America he grew up is already "snuffed out." I doubt he will ever realize that it was people like him who did the snuffing.
That's the end of this scathing, sad, and all too accurate diary. I really wish I knew what John Boehner thinks the America he grew up in was like.
It seems like everywhere you look these days, someone's trying to spread...The Fear.
All around us...in every town...on every corner...a massive Army Of Fear is standing by, according to the Messengers, ready at a moment's notice to obey the dictates of some unappointed Czar or another.
Just ask Glenn Beck: concentration camps for the white people, jackbooted stormtroopers ready to snatch the guns from your cold dead fingers...Socialist Government-Controlled Healthcare That Threatens Your Not Socialist Medicare...it's all coming, my friends-and unless we organize, as a community, to return to the values of the Founding Fathers, The Government, meaning that awful Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and George Soros and all the other Evil Community Organizers, will win.
There's no government, we're told, like no government.
You know who would find all of this fear of self-government just entirely bizarre?
The Founding Fathers.
In today's conversation we'll consider the fundamentals of American patriotism, we'll ask one of those Founding Fathers how he saw the role of Government-and we'll toss in a few words from Abraham Lincoln, just for good measure.
My life was changed the day in 1965 (or so) when I listened to this BU history professor speak at an anti-war rally on the Boston Common.
I had thought Vietnam was an aberration, a mistake in a context of America being the hero, always on the side of the anti-colonialist struggling for freedom. He woke me up to the true context of imperialism, and that Vietnam was just part of it.
He died last night at age 87. If you have not read his People's History of the United States (you probably have if you're on Blue Hampshire) you must.
From an initial printing of 5,000 copies in 1980, sales in 2010 continue to be brisk across the world. It is now part of the syllabus in many schools.
As Professor Zinn said "Knowing history is less about understanding the past than changing the future." Howard Zinn was a truly great American.
After a decade-long slide into semi-irrelevance, it's now being announced that the major television broadcast networks are considering leaving behind the "free TV/advertiser supported" business model in order to turn themselves into something more closely resembling a cable operation; the idea being that they could create a second revenue stream from the same "subscriber fees" that are paid by cable and satellite operators to all the other channels those operators carry.
This has become necessary, according to the networks, partly because the market has become so fragmented...which, naturally, is cable's fault-and presumably the fault of the disloyal viewer, as well.
Another reason driving the change is related to the desire of the networks to have a source of revenue that's more reliable in times of economic downturn, when advertisers often try to husband scarce resources by cutting back on all their expenses, particularly advertising dollars.
Will this new change in the business model reverse the fortunes of the networks?
Is it possible that the networks are simply poor business managers?
And what about...Krystal Carey?
Tune in for the rest of the story-and we'll find out.
We are halfway through a story that is about to turn winter in one of the most beautiful places in the world profoundly ugly.
Just like in a Cecil B. DeMille movie, we have a cast of millions, we have epic scenery, and we have made acquaintance with someone who will go on to perform a heroic act.
Unlike your typical Hollywood production, however, this movie is not going to have a happy ending-in fact, you could make the argument that it's not over yet.
So wrap yourself up in something comfortable, grab something to drink...and when you're ready, we're packing up and heading to the Alps.
We have another one of those "amazing history" stories for you today-and this one's a real doozy.
We're going to spend the better part of four years in the Italian Alps (or, to be more accurate, what was intended to be the Italian Alps), and by the time we're done, nearly 400,000 soldiers will have been killed-and 60,000 of those will have died as a result of avalanches that were set by one side or the other.
In the middle of the story: a mountaineer and soldier who was so highly regarded that even those who fought against him accorded him the highest honors they could muster, creating a legend that lives on to this very day.
And even though a young Captain Erwin Rommel fought in these battles...it's not him.
Oh, by the way: did I mention that there are also some handy object lessons for anyone who might be thinking about fighting a war in Afghanistan?
Well, there are, Gentle Reader, so follow along, and let's all learn something today.
Farm Life A Century Ago A Paper Read Upon Several Occasions
By Ethel Stanwood Bolton, 1909
I came across this at the Internet Archive. It was scanned in from the collection of the UMass Amherst Libraries and it seems like a good item to read with a cup of tea on a frosty October morning. You probably want to click the "Read Online" link on the left.
When it comes to getting around, Americans love to consider the question of "what if...?"
As a result, our cars have evolved into "land yachts", our trucks have become "monster trucks", and the desire to drag our living spaces around with us has morphed into converted busses with rooms that pop out of the side, a Mini-Cooper hidden under the master bedroom floor, and self-tracking satellite dishes that fight for space on the roof with air conditioning equipment.
And for more than a few of us, "what if...?" has even extended to "what if my car...was a jet car?"
In today's improbable reality I'm here to tell you that Chrysler engineers asked that exact same question, for roughly a quarter of a century, and as a result they actually designed and deployed seven generations of cars with jet engines-and they came darn close to putting the eighth-generation design on sale to the general public.
It's a story of pocket protectors and slide rules and offices full of guys who look a bit like Drew Carey...but as we'll see in Part Two, it may also be a story of technology that couldn't be perfected "back then", but could be reborn in our own times.
Sixty-five years ago today, 160,000 allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy to reclaim Europe from the horrors of fascism. 35,000 of these troops landed on Omaha Beach, and almost 5000 of them died there that day. The American forces on Omaha Beach were from the 1st and 29th Divisions. The 1st Division had seen more combat than any other in the American army--- it has been said that war is months of boredom punctuated by seconds of terror, but for the soldiers of the Big Red One the seconds were months of terror-they spent a total of 442 days in intense direct combat, more than any other Division in WWII- invading north Africa to battle with the forces of Rommel, invading Sicily, taking part in the invasion of Normandy, the subsequent break-out, and the Battle of the Bulge, fighting there way through Germany and into Czechoslovakia in a race to liberate the death camps.
On Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944 the 1st Division suffered 30% casualties in the first hour as they were pinned down on the beach by murderous fire from the sheer cliffs in front of them. At one point, Col. George Taylor, commander of the 16th Infantry Regt., famously told his men trapped on the beach, "Two kinds of people are staying on this beach! The dead and those who are going to die! Now, let's get the hell out of here!".
(part put below the fold by me. I also embedded the Emmylou Harris video-JD)
In order to complete today's story we return to travelling the seas around the High Arctic...and in telling the first half of the story we were introduced to a sea captain and his parrot, we examined the destruction of a tribal village by United States Marines-and we learned that "tricing up" someone is not some kind of weird dating ritual.
The story has already raised questions of race and culture; and as we move forward it's going to encompass whaling, an incredible rescue, and more personal trials and tribulations-not to mention the Brewery Worker's Union-and if all that wasn't enough, we'll even bring in a few thousand reindeer to round the whole thing out.
So put on your caribou fur, clean up your sled runners--and let's head north to Alaska, before the rush is on.
We have an epic tale of history to tell today, and it has everything you'd want in your standard-issue epic tale: the vast expanse of ocean, exploration on the shores of an unknown land, questions of race and slavery and opportunity and torture...and in the center of it all, a real larger-than-life sea captain (and his parrot) who some say was more powerful in Alaska than the Territorial Governor and Circuit Judges who were his frequent shipboard guests.
Such was his influence on the Revenue Cutter Service (later to become the United States Coast Guard) that two Coast Guard Cutters operating today are named with him in mind: the USCGC Bear, named after the most famous ship our sea captain commanded, and the USCGC Healy, the newest icebreaker in the Coast Guard's fleet.
And with that, Gentle Reader, allow me to introduce you to Captain Mike "Hell-Roaring" Healy-and the Arctic which was his domain.
The Bush/Paulson Economic Bail Out Proposal is an American Kristallnacht in the making.
So posits a DKos diarist named Mr. Tek.
And before anyone starts screaming about Godwin's Law and the Jewish persecution of Kristallnacht... THIS IS ABOUT ECONOMICS. As was Kristallnacht, as Tek's essay explains.
I have taken the liberty of editing Tek's piece for spelling, grammar, syntax and punctuation, and emphasising elements of the essay I feel are important to the historical parallel. I've also reproduced only that part of the essay I believe relevant to the argument.
(From Successful New Hampshire Men, published in 1882 by John B. Clarke, this biography authored by H.W. Herrick)
In the remarkable development of the railroad traffic in this country within the last fifty years, many prominent men of our state identified with this interest have achieved an enviable success. A leading position among these representative men will be accorded to General George Stark, who, within the last forty years, has been associated with the successful organization and management of several of the most wealthy and influential of these corporations.
President Lyndon Johnson delivered a speech to the nation in prime time. As he wrapped up his comments he added:
I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my Party to serve another term as your President.
Johnson had already deliberately sundered the historical Democratic coalition by pushing for and signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Dixiecrats would leave, toying with a third party under George Wallace, then joining a changing Republican coalition.
He tried to put the best face on his decision to not run. His campaign was already underway. It was a Rose Garden campaign: he didn't appear in New Hampshire during the primary and didn't even file nominating papers - his was a write-in campaign headed by Governor King and Senator McIntyre. He wasn't really choosing not to run that last day of March: he could already see that he would lose.
This was a generational shift. Many of the political leaders who had come into power with Kennedy did not long survive after Johnson's departure. King and McIntyre were on the wrong side of the Vietnam War; their own political careers stalled early.
The civil rights and anti-war movements re-invigorated the Party - and scared many of the party insiders. We started hearing of the need to be "strong on defense" from self-styles "Scoop Jackson Democrats." The conventional wisdom became: we only win with Southern candidates (Carter, Clinton). The boldness that had characterized the Party of FDR, JFK and LBJ had become something that the political consultants feared would scare off voters.
The best lacked all conviction, while the worst were full of passionate intensity.
