History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. — Winston Churchill
There is history — a chronicle of human events — and then there is perceived history. So often, the two are wildly at odds.
In 1963, a popular Democratic president was assassinated by a Marxist named Oswald, who had actually defected to the Soviet Union and returned to the U.S. with a Soviet wife, was an active member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and had attempted to assassinate a right-wing general named Edwin Walker earlier in the year.
Yet those who write history found these facts inconvenient. They created a different history in which the "atmosphere of hate" in the southern city of Dallas, Texas, led to the terrible political violence. In other words, it was political conservatism that led to John F. Kennedy's assassination. This perceived history was recycled as recently as the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. ABC's Christiane Amanpour, interviewing Jean Kennedy Smith, noted that the Kennedy assassination was "eerily relevant" and asked Kennedy to evaluate the "political atmosphere" in the country today.
Starting just a few years after the Kennedy assassination, American liberals began to consider anti-communism a kind of mental disorder. Hostility to communism was akin to racism, sexism and other character flaws. Reagan's description of the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" cemented liberal suspicions that Reagan was a dangerous buffoon. Yet starting in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, liberals began to find their anti-anti-communism embarrassing. And so they created a perceived history — one in which the Cold War was a time of consensus, a time when, as former Sen. Bill Bradley put it, "We knew where we stood on foreign policy."
Mona Charen writes for Creators Syndicate. – Ed.
5 comments:
mona writes a great piece. truth; what a concept......
". . .greatest responsibility for the collapse of the housing market and the near "Armageddon" of the American economy belongs to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and to the politicians who created and protected them. With a couple of prominent exceptions, the politicians were Democrats claiming to do good for the poor. . ."
> It is convenient that she fails to mention Bush who continued and expanded Democratic policies to give mortgages to people, especially minorities, who are not credit-worthy.
> Raise taxes on the rich. Let them pay their fair share. Then you will see things turn around. That is the only answer to this economic downturn. It is all about corporate greed. The old Trickle Down Economics myth where prosperity will rain down from above. Nope. We are ten years into the Bush tax cuts for the richest 1% and we are worse off than we have ever been. Where is all the job creation. REPUBLICAN LIES! They want to destroy unions so that they can pay us 5 dollars an hour while they get a hefty tax break! The Republican ain't for the man or woman carrying their lunch to work. Vote the pain away. Vote Democrat.
3:18, i agree bush couldn't reign in spending and chose not to, at least try to slow it down, but bush DID (on at least 2 occassions) try to stop frank and dodd's outragious programs for mortgage lending(my expertise,field of work). this is something i followed very closly as this again, was my field. the sub-prime lending was too fast and loose in many institutions (certainly not the majority). this is, by far, NOT the ONLY reason for the "recession/depression" we are in now.
when "o" took office and his czars were in place, all hell broke loose and we are going to be paying for this for many years to come. my children and grandchildren will never have what we had and life will not be the same for most. "o" and the dems still don't get it and can't seem to control themselves on spending the "citizens" money. it's like they are in a drunken stooper and they don't want to quit.
we may have a chance to not go the way of greece, spain etc., if we vote out "o" and the dems.
Its not a spending problem. . .it is lack of revenue. Lack of revenue because the rich are not paying their fair share of taxes. Bush tax cuts must be ended. Then you will see prosperity again. The middle class is paying the bill so that the rich can get their tax break. Trickle down economics does not work. . .it has never worked. . .it is a popular republican lie. . .it is used to justify helping the rich instead of those who need it. . .the middle class and aspiring middle class.
Why do you keep dumping on democrats? It's a two party system. Most of their time is spent pointing fingers at the other.
It was really old the thousandth time I heard it.
Aspiring middle class? Do you aspire to be a writer? lol
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