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The first newspapers, dating from the beginning of the seventeenth century, took the names “gazette,” after the Italian word gazetta, the copper coin that was the price of the first Venetian papers. Others took up names like “News” or “Relations”. More imaginative titles included the Journal, the Record, the Morning, the Evening, the Times, the Press, the Post, the Telegraph, the Intelligencer, the Advertiser, the Tribune, the Sun, the World, the Mirror. The very names of the press held the promise to inform, to announce, to instruct, and to reflect the world in all its complications.

The press has promised to hold up a mirror to the world. Walter Cronkite famously signed off, “And that’s the way it is.” He wanted his own signature on the news. Edward R. Murrow opened his radio reports from wartime England with a marvelous promise: “This…is London.” His reporting brought the war to American living rooms before Americans were ready to make the war their own. The media is a mirror to the world, perhaps, but the mirror shouldn’t be allowed to reflect just anything, should it? “Make a paper for the nicest kind of people,” wrote William Randolph Hearst in 1933. Decades earlier, Adolph Ochs, who bought the New York Times for a song and built it into the paper of New York’s establishment, added the memorable, long-lived pledge of “All the News That’s Fit to Print.” Walter Cronkite put it this way: “A democracy ceases to be a democracy if its citizens do not participate in its governance. To participate intelligently, they must know what their government has done, is doing and plans to do in their name… This is the meaning of freedom of press. It is not just important to democracy, it is democracy.”

The press has promised to make a better world. That was Joseph Pulitzer’s idea. His paper, he wrote, should “never be satisfied with merely printing news.” It “should always fight for progress and reform; never tolerate injustice or corruption; always fight demagogues of all parties…always oppose privileged classes and public plunder; never lack sympathy with the poor; always remain devoted to the public welfare…” His paper wouldn’t be just a watchdog on power. It was the very representative of the public. William Randolph Hearst in 1936 explained that “It is essential for the papers to conduct constructive campaigns for the benefit of the community with which they are associated.” The press would then move its readers to department store specials and elixir sales, to plays and films and sporting events. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the advertising income of the largest newspapers already exceeded their sales income. It was a sign of the world to come.

The press has also promised to entertain. “To instruct and amuse,” that was one of the mottos of the best-selling French newspaper of the nineteenth century. The mass of the public doesn’t want algebra. It wants emotion, sincerity, a good story. Hearst asked his editors to give people the kind of news they wanted to read, not the kind “that they were supposed to read but didn’t like.” “We must have the courage to be stupid,” said a Paris press baron. Most of what the press has provided is not news of any importance. Or news at all. Unfortunately we now find ourselves a long way from the early image of the press as a check on government. We’re caught in a web of conflict and tensions—to tell all the news and to tell the news that readers want.

The power of the press is also the power to misinform. This is where we are today with “fake news”. It has been around since the early years of our Republic. As President, Thomas Jefferson was hounded by an opposition press that mixed slander and misinformation. It was in the early nineteenth century when Jefferson wrote that “the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them.” When it does work, the power of the press can be great. But its effects are not always in the service of truth and justice. Under the sign of a common catastrophe or the threat of war, the press has worked to create a common sense of identity for its audience.

But the press is never simply a force for cohesion. It can just as easily serve as a means for division, giving voice to conflicts of all shapes. For all of its history, we hold fast to a vision of the powerful impact of the press, for good and bad. Take the case of William Randolph Hearst and the Spanish-American War. When Frederick Remington cabled from Cuba in 1897 that there would be no war, Hearst is said to have replied: “You supply the pictures, I’ll supply the war.” American intervention in Cuba would come the next year. What of Vietnam and television? It is offered up as a lesson of media and war: when the American public sees American casualties, the war is lost. However, far from demonstrating the horrors of war, television sanitized the conflict, and the networks went out of their way to not show American soldiers who had been killed or wounded.” The public, it turns out, was way ahead of the news.

A 1967 poll showed that 50 percent of Americans saw the American effort in Vietnam as a mistake. When Walter Cronkite famously declared on February 27, 1968 that the war was unwinnable, he was, simply coming around to the views of middle America.” The internet-borne forces that are eating away at print and television advertising are enabling a host of fake journalistic players to pollute the media with dangerously fake news items. The cure for fake news is an overwhelming dose of honest news. Maybe this year’s explosion in fake news will serve to raise the value of real news. If so, it will be honest journalism that saves journalism.

Think about this, almost every area of news has been invaded by fake news, but some subject areas appear to be more or less immune from it. Fake news about sports or business is extremely rare. Oh, the sports and business pages aren’t fake-free. Hoaxes and baseless rumors get published, but sports and business readers tend to be knowledgeable about their interests. A fake story about a stock price or a baseball score is quickly resisted by savvy readers who demand that it must be corrected or retracted. Why is this? The answer is simple. Fake political news thrives because intense media coverage causes nearly everybody to develop some sort of interest in political topics.

However, not everybody has the knowledge to equal their basic interest in political topics. This makes them easy to fool and easy prey for fake news. The more outrageous and partisan a fake story is, the greater the chance it will be reshared, go viral and break into the mainstream. But no matter what measures we take, fake news will persist because human nature persists. People throw their money away on get-rich schemes, and correspond with Nigerian scamsters and get fleeced, even though they know better. We may never end fake news, but practicing critical thinking skills can go a long way toward slowing the influence of fake news. Remember :

1. Don’t Take Anything at Face Value

2. Consider the Motive

3. Do Your Research

4. Ask Questions

5. Don’t always assume You’re Right

6. Break It Down

7. Keep It Simple

A little history before they arrive.

Let’s take a look at our history when it comes to immigration and maybe we can make some sense of what the talking heads on the national news are saying. They obviously don’t know their history. If they did, they would hesitate to lay blame on President Trump for all of our current immigration woes.

The first immigrants to come to the United States arrived from Europe during the Colonial period. Many were merchants looking to trade and barter or settlers in search of religious toleration. When they reached North America, also known as the New World, they encountered groups of Indians who welcomed them. Other groups of immigrants arrived involuntarily. English convicts were sent over as they were not wanted in their own country and, beginning in 1619, African slaves were forcefully transported over as part of the slave trade. Slaves, without rights, were commonly wanted for cheap labor but convicts were a nuisance to the Colonies. The act of dumping English convicts led to the first passage of immigration enforcement legislation.

The Colonies fought against the English Parliamentary Law that allowed criminals to be sent over and passed their own laws against that practice. Ironically these laws were passed by recent descendants of criminals that had been sent over previously. With the creation of the United States, there was much debate over who were the “founding fathers”. At the time the population was a combination of Europeans of all different nations and languages, Native Americans and African slaves. However, neither Native Americans nor African Slaves were even considered citizens. It was a question of whether the United States was a country of one specific group; White, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant men and women or one that welcomed newcomers from different countries, different religions and who spoke different languages. Difference of opinion on this point created the first political party, the Federalists. The Federalist Party was fearful of French immigrants influenced by the French Revolution. They feared them coming to the United States and causing a political disturbance.

Their fear convinced Congress to pass a stricter Naturalization law in 1795. Immigrants were required to be a resident for 2 to 5 years to be considered a citizen. In 1798, Federalists took power and changed the law to 14 years of residence and additionally passed the Alien Enemies Act, Friends Act and the Alien Sedition Act signed into law by John Adams. These laws allowed the President to deport any immigrant who he believed posed a threat to national security. In 1800, the new Democratic Party under Thomas Jefferson, took power and eliminated the Alien and Sedition Acts deeming them as unconstitutional and as violations of the First and Tenth Amendment. Furthermore the Jefferson administration moved the citizenship requirement back to five years of permanent residence (where it is today). During the 19th century a huge wave of Europeans immigrated to the United States. Several of the first European immigrants were Irish and German. The potato famine in Ireland and the loss of land from the British pushed the Irish to immigrate to other countries. Likewise, Germany was under severe economic depression and religious intolerance that forced many Catholics to leave. Immigrants chose the United States for several reasons but two factors played a major role. First, rapid industrialization increased the need for cheap labor. Second, the United States was beginning to claim land from the Spanish and native people in the western half of the US. Many people feared this massive number of immigrants coming into our country.

In a report from the Congressional Select Committee in July 1838 congressional members thought the increased immigration rate was a threat to the “peace and tranquility of our citizens” and classified immigrants as “paupers, vagrants, and malefactors…sent hither at the expense of foreign governments to relieve them from the burden of their maintenance”. The anti-immigrant fears led to organized groups against European immigrants such as Order of the Star Spangled Banner and the Know Nothing Party. In 1875 Congress passed an exclusion law banning prostitutes and convicts from entering the United States. Between 1860 and 1915 another wave of European immigrants entered the United States. Many came from Russia, Austria and Italy and a large portion of this new group were Jewish.

Congress now decided that immigrants should be required to pass a medical exam and have no criminal record in order to immigrate to the United States. The 1891 Act barred people having any contagious diseases or history of crime. In 1903, people in the United States were also fearful of European radicals entering the country and so the government added anarchists and subversives to the 1891 Act. Fear was so widespread that Congress and President Theodore Roosevelt decided to establish the Dillingham Commission to report the effects of immigration on the country. The Commission recommended that the United States no longer accept immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe and furthermore all immigrants were to pass a literacy test.

In 1917, under the Wilson administration (Democrat), Congress passed the first comprehensive immigration act which included a literacy test requirement. In 1924 the National Origins Act was passed putting a quota system on the number of immigrants who entered the United States. The law effectively stopped any more large flows of European immigration. The Chinese also started immigrating to the United States in the 1800’s after a population explosion and a food shortage in China. When Chinese immigrants could be used for cheap labor they were instantly recruited (transcontinental RR) but the second an economic shift took place in the United States, immigrants were given the cold shoulder.Initially, United States businesses recruited Chinese men to work as day laborers. The idea was that they would come and work temporarily, save money and return back to their families in China. California in particular was supportive of Chinese immigration and lured a lot of immigrants to settle in the western half of the country.

However, priorities shifted when gold was discovered in California in 1848. California passed laws that banned Chinese from mining. After the Civil War the Chinese were recruited again to build levees and the railroad. When all the projects were complete the Chinese did not return to their country because there weren’t any economic opportunities for them there. The welcoming of Chinese immigrants stopped abruptly as fear grew that they were taking over jobs and were a threat to society. The Chinese had now virtually taken over the fishing industry in California. In 1882 the first of three Chinese Exclusion Acts was passed, The statute suspended Chinese immigration for ten years and declared the Chinese as ineligible for citizenship. The act was renewed in 1892 for another ten years, and in 1902 Chinese immigration was made permanently illegal. The legislation proved very effective, and the Chinese population in the United States sharply declined. It was not until 1943 that China and the United States became allies during World War II and the exclusion laws were repealed. 

After the Mexican War in 1849 the United States claimed the territory that now includes California, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Colorado, Utah and Nevada. The Mexicans in these areas had an option to return to Mexico or stay living in what was now considered the United States. Most did not return and the United States did not enforce any border laws. Between 1900 and 1930, Mexican immigration into the United States rose dramatically as cheap U.S. labor was once again needed. Employers recruited Mexicans to work in agriculture after Chinese and Japanese immigrants were excluded from working in the United States. However Mexican workers were at a great disadvantage as they had no working rights. Anytime they organized a strike against abuse from employers they were simply deported. In the 1930’s the United States suffered from the Great Depression, and the first campaign against Mexican immigration began. Border patrol and police officers sent hundreds of thousands of people back to Mexico, some of whom were citizens of the United States.

Once again during World War II there was a labor shortage and immigrants were needed to fill the gap. However, the country was at war and so, the government now formed the House Committee on Un-American Activities – commonly referred to as the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) It was formed in 1938 and known as the Dies Committee for Rep. Martin Dies, who chaired it until 1944. The committee investigated a variety of “activities,” including those of German-American Nazis during World War II. The Committee soon focused on Communism, beginning with an investigation into Communists in the Federal Theatre Project in 1938. A significant step for the committee was its investigation of the charges of espionage brought against Alger Hiss (accused of being a Soviet spy during WWII) in 1948. This investigation ultimately resulted in Hiss’s trial and conviction for perjury, and convinced many of the usefulness of congressional committees for uncovering Communist subversion. The committee became even more famous for its investigation into the Hollywood film industry. In October 1947, the Committee began to subpoena screenwriters, directors, and other movie industry professionals to testify about their known or suspected membership in the Communist Party, association with its members, or support of its beliefs. It was at these testimonies that what became known as “the $64,000 question” was asked: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party of the United States?”

Among the first film industry witnesses subpoenaed by the Committee were ten who decided not to cooperate. These men, who became known as the “Hollywood Ten”, cited the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech and free assembly, which they believed legally protected them from being required to answer the Committee’s questions. This tactic failed, and the ten were sentenced to prison for contempt of Congress. Two of the ten were sentenced to six months, the rest to a year. As the war continued, the continuing need for workers increased. So, in 1942 the “Bracero” program was created. Temporary workers were brought in mainly from Mexico but also Barbados, the Bahamas, Canada and Jamaica to work in agriculture. Working conditions were awful for immigrants. They were paid very little and their children were not allowed to attend schools.

Now in the same year, 1942, over 127,000 United States citizens were imprisoned during World War II. Their crime? Being of Japanese ancestry. So while we are importing immigrant labor, we are sending US citizen to prison camps. Despite the lack of any concrete evidence, Japanese Americans were suspected of remaining loyal to their ancestral land. Anti-Japanese paranoia increased because of a large Japanese presence on the West Coast. In the event of a Japanese invasion of the American mainland, Japanese Americans were feared as a security risk. President Roosevelt signed an executive order in February 1942 ordering the relocation of all Americans of Japanese ancestry to concentration camps in the interior of the United States. Evacuation orders were posted in Japanese-American communities giving instructions on how to comply with the executive order. Many families sold their homes, their stores, and most of their assets. They could not be certain their homes and businesses would still be there upon their return. Because of the mad rush to sell, properties and inventories were often sold for pennies on the dollar. After being forced from their communities, Japanese families made these military style barracks their homes. Until the camps were completed, many of the evacuees were held in temporary centers, such as stables at local racetracks.

Almost two-thirds of the people were Japanese Americans born in the United States. It made no difference that many had never even been to Japan. Even Japanese-American veterans of World War I were forced to leave their homes. Ten camps were finally completed in remote areas of seven western states. Most of the ten relocation camps were built in arid and semi-arid areas where life would have been harsh under even ideal conditions. The camps were often too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. The food was mass produced army-style grub and the people knew that if they tried to flee, armed sentries who stood watch around the clock, would shoot them. One of the people being held, Fred Korematsu, decided to test the government relocation action in the courts. In Korematsu vs. the United States, the Supreme Court justified the executive order as a wartime necessity. When John F. Kennedy was elected President he realized the need to reform the immigration laws. Kennedy proposed a bill that created a system for allowing immigrants into the country based on family ties and special skills called the Immigration and Nationality Act also known as the Hart-Cellar Act. President Johnson signed the bill into law.

The new system had a major effect on countries in the Western hemisphere, especially Mexico. The 1965 Act allowed large masses of immigrants from Asia and Mexico to now enter the US. At the end of the Cold War anti-immigrant sentiments began again, specifically in California. The state suffered a prolonged recession in which many people were left without jobs. This lead to a large anti-immigrant movement since California had the largest immigrant population. In 1994 California passed Proposition 187 which banned undocumented children from attending public schools and denied them public health services.

So, based on our history, how is it that the national media can say that President Trump’s position on illegal immigration “Is not America, that it is not who we are?”

Whether you like it or not, socialism is back in fashion and it is gaining support among America’s youth. A recent YouGov survey found that 43 percent of respondents under the age of 30 had a favorable view of socialism. Only 32 percent had a favorable view of capitalism. Another recent survey, this one by Republican pollster Frank Luntz, found in the words of U.S. News’s Ken Walsh that “[58] percent of young people choose socialism over capitalism [which was chosen by 33 percent of young people] … as the most compassionate system. Sixty-six percent say corporate America ‘embodies everything that is wrong with America,’ compared with 34 percent who say corporate America embodies what’s right with America. 28 percent say the most pressing issue facing the country is income inequality. Now folks, this scares me to death and I attribute most of this problem to the dismal job we are doing of teaching our children “true” history. On its face socialism sounds great. Everyone has a job, everyone has a place to live, everyone has food on the table, free healthcare, and a free education. Think about it. No poverty, no crime. Why would anyone be against such a system? This is the very program implemented under Lenin and Stalin. Here is how it works. The government seizes all private property and takes control of all means of production in the country. The government has complete control of the economy, sets all prices, and regulates all production. Now, we all know that the owners of American businesses are not going to voluntarily hand over their firms to the government. This is where socialism transitions into communism. If the people will not voluntarily give up their business and private property and agree to submit to complete government control, they must be forced to do so, for the betterment of the nation and all of its citizens. Here is the “true” history of how it worked. Once the government seized all assets of the propertied class they set about running all means of production. Government officials now took over the factories, the farms, the entire distribution network,….everything. Now we need workers. The government now tells us where we will work and what we will be doing. KB will be working in a shoe factory, I will be working on a farm, KB’s wife will be driving a truck, my wife will be working at a bakery. We have no choice. You will work where you are told to work. Now in exchange for this work, here comes the free stuff as promised. Each family is given a 2 room apartment in a high rise government housing unit. (You can still see these in the background when you see places like Moscow or Kiev on TV). Everyone gets the same unit. Heat is provided but no one has air. Your apartment is within a few blocks of the factory where you work. You walk to work like everyone else. You work a 12 hour shift. When you are done you head home. On the way you stop to stand in line at the local food distribution center. You stand in line for 2 hours and are given one pound of meat, 5 pounds of potatoes, an 2 loaves of bread. This is your weekly ration of food for you and your family. Don’t complain, you didn’t have to pay for it and it is the same as everyone gets. Again, socialism, where everyone is treated equally. What about clothes? Well, every 6 months, you and the family march down to the clothing distribution center and you are given a pair of pants, a shirt, socks, underwear, and a new pair of shoes. (your shoes are worn out, you walk everywhere). Again, what a great deal. All this stuff is free! So I have clothes on my back, food on the table, a roof over my head, and a steady job. All the things the government promised. So what is wrong? First, you have no choice as to what your job is. The government decides that. Did I mention pay? No one gets paid. Why do you need money? Everything you need is provided by the government. But I want a car. I want a cell phone. Sorry. If I give you one, then, to be fair, I have to give one to everyone. Just can’t afford to do that. Well that’s a crock. I will just leave. Oops!, there is another part of this I forgot to tell you about. You are required to carry ID papers on you at all times. These papers say who you are, where you work, where you can get your food and clothes, and where you live. You are confined to those areas. You cannot travel outside those areas without government permission. Fine, I will just stop working. Sorry it doesn’t work like that. You will show up to work on time, you will meet daily quotas. Failure to do so will result in cuts to your food rations, or worse, arrest and imprisonment. What is wrong with you? I thought you wanted to make everyone equal. Why are you not willing to do your fair share? I mean, let’s look at the system. I work on a government farm. Here , we grow wheat. When it comes time to harvest, we cut the wheat and load it onto government trucks driven by workers such as myself. The trucks then haul the wheat to government factories, manned by more workers like me, who process the wheat into flour. The flour is now hauled in government trucks to a bakery and is baked into bread by people just like me. The bread is then taken to a government warehouse, where it is now taken to the food distribution centers throughout the nation. See how it works? Everyone has a job, everyone gets food. The same system is set up for clothes, shoes, steel mills, coal fields, you name it. So you see, if you don’t do your part, the system collapses. The government must make sure that everyone is doing their fair share. Otherwise, we all suffer. But how do I get ahead? I don’t want to be a farmer, or a trucker, or a baker. Sorry, the government has decided that your place is here. I thought you wanted everyone to be equal. You are. You all have a roof over your head, food on the table, clothes on your back. You no longer have to put up with watching your neighbor driving that fancy car, living in that nice house, or buying those designer clothes. He now has exactly the same as you! So there you have a brief idea of what a true utopian socialist society would be like. Now folks, the new darling of the Democratic Party and the liberal mainstream media is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and liberals across the land have wholeheartedly embraced her call for “Democratic Socialism.” Ignoring the fact that Bernie Sanders said essentially the exact same things in the last presidential campaign but was unceremoniously and dishonestly pushed aside by the Democratic Party in favor of Hillary Clinton, what exactly is this “democratic socialism” that seems to have everyone on that side of the fence so excited these days? What Social Democrats think is, it sounds good: income equality, a fair living wage for everyone, plentiful employment opportunities, quality healthcare coverage for all, affordable college education for all who want it, easy access to affordable, quality housing, and a tax system where the so-called rich pay their “fair share.” Implicit in the entire discussion of their prized new order is that everything about the American economy, way of life and culture that is to their liking would remain securely in place, unaffected by the transition to democratic socialism. That, of course, is ridiculous. The parts of daily American life that people like and take for granted — plentiful food available at well-stocked supermarkets, instant access to news, sports and music, the ability to make purchases and have them delivered the next day, cheap and plentiful fuel availability, a huge variety of nonessential consumer goods, from toys to fashion clothing to jewelry to cell phones to entertainment electronics and their associated services, and millions of other items — are all made possible by the capitalist/profit-oriented structure of our economic system. If the private business profit incentive is removed, as is the case in a socialist economy, the underlying competitive motivation for providing those goods and services disappears. The more “socialism” that is introduced into the economy, the less efficient that economy becomes, because lessened private competition results in fewer choices and no incentive to increase efficiency or reduce costs. Quality goes out the window. Why do a good job if everyone gets paid the same regardless of their work ethic? Proponents of democratic socialism never actually explain where the money needed to pay for all the freebees will actually come from. There is a limit to how much simply taxing the rich will produce. Taxes on services and sales transactions would need to be raised to a stifling degree, with an equally negative effect on economic activity. Europe’s supposed nirvana of universal healthcare is, in reality, a boondoggle of smoke and mirrors, where the average person has limited access to what we would consider routine medical care, at a level far lower than the average American could ever imagine. Currently in Italy, for example, hospital patients usually bring their own metal eating utensils and towels with them, since those are often not provided. Toilet paper is often scarce in the hospital as well. For childbirth, expectant mothers usually bring their own medicines, sanitary products and newborn diapers. Visitors are not asked to leave by 8:00 P.M. as is customary in U.S. hospitals. On the contrary, patients are advised to have a visitor stay overnight with them, because nurse staffing levels are far lower. Bedding is not provided for overnight visitors, however. Patients do have access to doctors and medical care via the national health system, but noncritical conditions and injuries receive lower priority and delayed attention. If a patient desires American-style “on-demand” care, they must simply pay for it out-of-pocket, an option not possible for all but the wealthiest citizens. Access to quality healthcare is simply not available to the average Italian. Did I mention that in Italy gasoline is taxed at $8.00/gallon? Let’s look at one other promise of democratic socialism: affordable college for anyone who wants it. Bear in mind, under Lenin and Stalin, the government decides your career. Do well in grade school and they may send you on to high school and even college, free of charge. Do poorly in grade school, you were marked to be nothing more than a factory worker or coal miner your entire life. Now even though the Left-wing establishment press has found a new Democratic darling in socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; to be honest, the party has been headed that way for years. The evidence can be found in the way states, controlled by the democratic party have been run into the ground, financially speaking. Several of them are facing massive debt thanks to mostly over-promised pensions approved by Democrats that have drained state bank accounts and are set to saddle taxpayers living in them with hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes. Connecticut may be the richest state in the country, on a per capita basis, but it’s racked up a sizable debt worth more than $53 billion – and it will be taxpayers who are forced to bail out the state government, according to the former governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels. And Connecticut isn’t the only state struggling with a debt crisis: California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York are unable to make pension payments to retired government workers. In Illinois, for instance, vendors wait months to be paid by a government that’s $30 billion in debt, and one whose bonds are just one notch above junk bond status, according to Daniels. New York’s more than $356 billion in debt; New Jersey more than $104 billion; and California more than $428 billion. That means Democrats still running those states will do what Democrats always do when they over-promise and overspend: Raise taxes. The problem now is there is not much chance of raising them enough to pay off what is owed because you can only tax people so much. The debt bombs are about to explode in liberal, Democrat-run states. If you’re in one of them, it’s time to start looking for a way out. Capitalism is far from perfect and not everyone benefits to the same degree — but it’s fundamentally superior to everything else. It’s like what Winston Churchill said about democracy: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” Now here comes the scary part to all of this. History is repeating itself. Stalin came to power by using the electoral process established under Lenin. While Lenin courted the political elite in Russia, Stalin was quietly campaigning at the grass roots level throughout the country. By the time Lenin realized what Stalin was doing, it was too late. Stalin had control of the Russian Parliament known as the Duma. Adolph Hitler did the same thing. Rather than take control of Germany by force, Hitler launched a campaign aimed at the German workers holding massive rallies, and condemning the rich as exploiting the common man. Biding his time, through a series of elections, the Nazi party gained control of the German Parliament (The Reichstag). Once they were the majority party, they simply named Hitler as Chancellor. The Democratic Socialists are following the playbook. Forty-two democratic socialist-endorsed candidates who are now or will soon be serving in offices from the Moorhead, Minn., school board to Capitol Hill (that is, if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wins the general election as handily as she did her primary in New York’s 14th Congressional District). So far this year, local chapters have endorsed at least 110 candidates. So what is DSA, exactly, and what is it doing with this growing army? DSA stands for Democratic Socialists of America. DSA’s electoral work has attracted national media attention. Yet it’s just one part of a bottom-up approach to politics that sees the ballot box and state power as tools for advancing toward a more radically democratic society. Just like Stalin and Hitler did. Members—most of them millennials, in small towns and big cities in every corner of the country—are engaged in everything from occupying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offices to evangelizing about Medicare for All. Many reporters have tried to determine what the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) believes, be that the group’s policies or its ideology. DSA, though—to borrow from Karl Marx—isn’t looking merely to interpret the world, but to change it, campaign by campaign, door by door. What’s made DSA’s ascendance remarkable is less its analysis of capitalism than its ability to put people angry about capitalism to work. Enter Bernie Sanders’ primary campaign and his stalwart identification as a “democratic socialist,” a surprise boon for an organization with those two words in its name. Democratic socialism itself has always been a multi meaning term, encompassing everyone from ideological Russian Socialists to New Deal Democrats. The surge of new, mostly 20-something members include anarchists, Marxist academics and—most numerously—political newbies excited about Sanders’ message and frustrated with the Democratic establishment. DSA isn’t keen to enforce a strict definition of “democratic socialism”—although mainstream media outlets newly hip to DSA are desperately looking for one. On its website, DSA writes: At the root of our socialism is a profound commitment to democracy, as a means and end. As we are unlikely to see an immediate end to capitalism tomorrow, DSA fights for reforms today that will weaken the power of corporations and increase the power of working people. … Our vision is of a society in which people have a real voice in the choices and relationships that affect the entirety of our lives. We call this vision democratic socialism—a vision of a more free, democratic and humane society. Members have taken this to mean everything from taking public goods like healthcare off the private market (along the lines of Scandinavian social democracies) to worker-ownership of the means of production. Central Iowa DSA co-chair Caroline Schoonover was among many to say that democratic socialism means “taking power from the few and giving it to the many.” So there it is folks. Like I said, I am scared. History is repeating itself. I know the outcome and now, so do you. Why is it happening? People do not know their history. Why? Because our education system has failed to teach “True” history. I used to teach it and did so until the government, led by liberal progressives took control of our textbooks, schools and colleges. I have spoken out on this issue in the past and suffered the consequences, but I would do it again, because losing my country and the future of our children and grandchildren is a pain none of us should have to endure.

Republics are forever unsteady and at risk, as our founders well understood. Americans love to believe their history is blessed and exceptional, the story of a people with beliefs born of the Enlightenment that will govern the worst of human nature and inspire our “better angels” to hold us together. Sometimes they do. But this most diverse nation in the world is still an experiment, and we are once again in a political situation that has made us ask if we are on the verge of some kind of new civil conflict. In one of his earliest speeches, in 1838, Abraham Lincoln worried about politicians’ unbridled ambition, about mob violence, and about the “perpetuation of our political institutions”. Lincoln said he felt a deep sense of responsibility inherited from the “fathers” of the revolution. How to preserve and renew “the edifice of liberty and equal rights”. He went on to say, “At what point shall we expect the approach of danger?” “By what means shall we fortify against it?” “Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step across the ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined … could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.” Lincoln did not fear foreign enemies. If “danger” would “ever reach us”, he said, “it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” Those words have a frightful clarity even today. Where are we now? Are Americans on the verge of some kind of social disintegration, political breakup, or collective nervous breakdown, as the writer Paul Starobin has recently asked? Starobin has written a new book, Madness Rules the Hour: Charleston, 1860, and the Mania for War, in which he revisits the old thesis that the secession moment represented a “crisis of fear” that led tragically to disunion and war. Psychologically and verbally, social media on the internet, and in talk show television, we are a society already engaged in a war of words. And it has been that way for a long time. We are now in conflict about real and divergent ideas. Are we on the path to suicide as a democracy as Lincoln warned? Commentators and ordinary citizens have been asking how or where in the past we can find parallels for our current condition. The 1850s, leading to the civil war, have many parallels to what we are seeing today. 1. Definitions of American nationalism, just who was a true American, were in constant debate. 2. After the Potato Famine in Ireland the US experienced a huge increase in immigration between 1845 and the mid-1850s, leading to a rapid and powerful rise of nativism, a policy of favoring native inhabitants as opposed to immigrants . Irish and German Catholics were unwelcome and discriminated against. 3. The Mexican-American war of 1846-48, stimulated an explosive political struggle over the expansion of slavery and state’s rights. The south wanted slavery in the new western territories, the North was totally opposed to this. Southerners argued that this was a state’s rights issue and that newly formed states should decide if they would be free or slave, not the Federal government. The two major political parties, the Whigs and Democrats, either disintegrated or broke into sectional parts, north and south, over the issue. Third parties suddenly emerged with success like no other time in our history. First the Know-Nothings, or American party, whose xenophobia (fear of foreigners) and anti-Catholicism got them elected in droves in New England in the early 1850s. And the most successful third party in our history, the Republicans, were born by their opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, supported by Democrats, that would allow Kansas to decide if it would be a free or slave state. In 1857, the Supreme Court (the Federal government) weighed in by declaring in Dred Scott v Sandford that blacks were not and could never be citizens of the US. This most notorious court decision legally opened up all of the west, and for that matter, all of the north to the presence of slavery. So discredited was the Supreme Court among many northerners in the wake of the decision, that the Republicans made resistance to the judiciary a rallying cry of their party. That led to the election of Lincoln in 1860, which became the primary reason cited by the south to secede from the union. They believed they could not co-exist in a nation now led by a political organization devoted to destroying state’s rights. Now let’s not focus solely on the Civil War. American history is riddled with conflicts between the federal government and the states. Each and every conflict was driven by social and political issues. Since ratification of the Constitution, which established a union of states under a federal system of governance, two questions have generated considerable debate: What is the nature of the union? What powers, privileges, duties, and responsibilities does the Constitution grant to the national government and reserve to the states and the people? During the 229-year history of the Constitution, these issues have been debated time and again and have shaped and been shaped by the nation’s political, social, and economic history. The period from 1789 to 1901 has been termed the era of Dual Federalism. It has been characterized as an era during which there was little collaboration between the national and state governments. 1901 to 1960 was marked by greater cooperation and collaboration between the various levels of government. It was during this era that the national income tax and the welfare system were authorized in response to social and economic problems confronting the nation. Between 1960 and 1968, President Johnson’s Great Society program was, a major departure from the past. It shifted the power relationship between state and federal governments toward the national government through the expansion of the welfare system and the increasing use of regulations. This set the stage for the period from 1970 to the present, that saw the tremendous growth of unfunded federal mandates, a huge expansion of federal regulations, and continuing disputes over the nature of the federal power over the citizens of the US. Adding fuel to this fire over a federal government run amuck, we now see the influence of political correctness being inserted into our daily lives by a federal juggernaut. Schools and universities must comply with federal mandates concerning everything from LGBT issues, revisionist history, immigration, prayers in school, and even public expression of patriotism such as the pledge of allegiance. Businesses have now succumbed to the pressure. The federal government will now tell you that you must bake a cake for certain customers. Dolly Parton’s Dixieland Stampede in Branson has now removed the word Dixie for fear of offending someone. Football teams remain in the locker room during the playing of the National Anthem to avoid controversy or lawsuits by players. Statues of founding fathers and heroes of our past are now removed from sight for fear of initiating controversy in our cities. Just last week, a bill was submitted in the Missouri legislature to change the name of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (The Arch) in St. Louis because Jefferson owned slaves. Will the name of our capital city soon be changed as well? How much more can our country take? Have the powers that be driven a wedge into our country from which we may never recover? Was Lincoln right? Is the US about to die by suicide?

Are you tired of the five minute news clips presented every night by the talking heads on the national news? Would you like to know what is really going on? I have taught American and European History for the past 27 years. I find it fascinating how history truly does repeat itself. When we watch the evening news, no one seems to know anything about how current events are all tied to the past. Kavanaugh hearings? The Arab/Israeli conflict? How about international relations with Russia, China, and Europe? 

I do a weekly call in radio show here in the Ozarks and address these issues on a weekly basis. Listeners have asked that I publish my notes from my weekly show, so I have launched this site to share that info. On my shows I give an historical perspective to what is currently happening in our world. I then open the phone lines to hear what you, the people of this great nation, have to say. It has been a great learning experience for me and my listeners.

Like most old timers, I am new to this blog thing, so you will have to bear with me while I learn how to post my notes and navigate the site. Should be fun!