While looking for damning criticisms of the New Deal to counter the overwhelmingly and pathetically pro-New Deal and leftist articles for my comparative history seminar I came across this article by historian Jim Powell. Powell, author of FDR's Folly, wrote about how the New Deal hurt the people it was supposed to help. According to Powell, the New Deal's main source of revenue came in the form of excise taxes which fell disproportionately on the lower classes. Though the article is from 2003, I feel it can serve as a warning to the current economic situation. The $700 billion dollar bail out was shot down yesterday by the House of Representatives. The news is already being spun by Democrats that it failed because of heartless Republicans despite the fact that 95 House Democrats voted against the bail out. I am not sure how I feel about the plan, but I am beginning to think that maybe the economy would be better off without the bail out. I'm sure that those who favor the bail out have good intentions, but, as Powell concluded, "we should evaluate government policies according to their actual consequences, not their good intentions."
Here is an excerpt from Powell's article:
"Democratic presidential candidates as well as some conservative intellectuals, are suggesting that Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal is a good model for government policy today."
"Mounting evidence, however, makes clear that poor people were principal victims of the New Deal. The evidence has been developed by dozens of economists -- including two Nobel Prize winners -- at Brown, Columbia, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, the University of California (Berkeley) and University of Chicago, among other universities."
"New Deal programs were financed by tripling federal taxes from $1.6 billion in 1933 to $5.3 billion in 1940. Excise taxes, personal income taxes, inheritance taxes, corporate income taxes, holding company taxes and so-called "excess profits" taxes all went up."
" The most important source of New Deal revenue were excise taxes levied on alcoholic beverages, cigarettes, matches, candy, chewing gum, margarine, fruit juice, soft drinks, cars, tires (including tires on wheelchairs), telephone calls, movie tickets, playing cards, electricity, radios -- these and many other everyday things were subject to New Deal excise taxes, which meant that the New Deal was substantially financed by the middle class and poor people. Yes, to hear FDR's "Fireside Chats," one had to pay FDR excise taxes for a radio and electricity! A Treasury Department report acknowledged that excise taxes "often fell disproportionately on the less affluent.""
"Until 1937, New Deal revenue from excise taxes exceeded the combined revenue from both personal income taxes and corporate income taxes. It wasn't until 1942, in the midst of World War II, that income taxes exceeded excise taxes for the first time under FDR. Consumers had less money to spend, and employers had less money for growth and jobs."
"New Deal taxes were major job destroyers during the 1930s, prolonging unemployment that averaged 17%. Higher business taxes meant that employers had less money for growth and jobs. Social Security excise taxes on payrolls made it more expensive for employers to hire people, which discouraged hiring."
I have a very keen interest in New Jersey history, but more specifically New Jersey during the Civil War. So from time to time I plan to publish a series of posts featuring profiles of key figures within the state during the war as well as primary documents from this era. So hope you enjoy these posts. In this first post I am going to share some of my personal research on this subject. This is my senior thesis from Rider University, which is entitled "Burlington City and the Preservation of the Union." I examined the words of Burlinton City's soldiers (both white and black) and the prominant Peace Democrat (or Copperhead) James Walter Wall and came to the conclusion that all three groups wished to preserve the Union, but favored different means to bring about this shared goal. This essay is actually serving as basis for my masters' thesis, which I am working on now, that will look at the words and actions of James Wall. I hope to use Wall as a case study of the limits of loyal opposition in New Jersey during the war years. The paper can be read here, but please do not cite or quote without the author's permission.
In this article from RealClearPolitics.com, historian Victor Davis Hanson argued that Americans aren't exactly blameless victims in the financial crisis. He wrote: "When the mortgage bubble burst, Americans were "shocked" at how many Wall Street buccaneers had been gambling in a vast pyramid scheme with someone else's money. Paper fortunes were made buying and selling questionable sub-prime mortgages on the silly assumption that such gargantuan inside profiting would always expand -- even as the number of homebuyers able to buy overpriced properties was shrinking."
"Now after the recent crash in sub-prime mortgages and the stock of several investment firms, a trillion dollars in "assets" could be nearly worthless. An already indebted American government must restore some sort of trust to banks and markets by either printing money or borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from foreign creditors to guarantee loans."
"All that remains of this Ponzi scheme is the election-year blame game. Republicans charge that important financial firewalls were dismantled by the Clinton administration while insider liberal senators got shady campaign donations in exchange for aiding Wall Street. Democrats counter that the laissez-faire capitalism espoused by Republicans for two decades encouraged financial piracy while tax policy favored the rich speculator over the middle-class wage earner."
"But no one dares to ask what really drove the wheeler-dealer portfolio managers. Who re-elected these shady politicians of both parties? Who fostered the cash-in culture in which both Wall Street profit mongering and Washington lobbying are nourished and thrive? We citizens did -- red-state conservatives and blue-state liberals, Republicans and Democrats, alike. We may be victims of Wall Street greed -- but not quite innocent victims."
"Let me explain..."
In an exclusive for CNN.com, Ron Paul wrote: "Many Americans today are asking themselves how the economy got to be in such a bad spot. "
"For years they thought the economy was booming, growth was up, job numbers and productivity were increasing. Yet now we find ourselves in what is shaping up to be one of the most severe economic downturns since the Great Depression."
"Unfortunately, the government's preferred solution to the crisis is the very thing that got us into this mess in the first place: government intervention."
"Ever since the 1930s, the federal government has involved itself deeply in housing policy and developed numerous programs to encourage homebuilding and homeownership."
"Government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were able to obtain a monopoly position in the mortgage market, especially the mortgage-backed securities market, because of the advantages bestowed upon them by the federal government."
"Laws passed by Congress such as the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to make loans to previously underserved segments of their communities, thus forcing banks to lend to people who normally would be rejected as bad credit risks."
" These governmental measures, combined with the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy, led to an unsustainable housing boom. The key measure by which the Fed caused this boom was through the manipulation of interest rates, and the open market operations that accompany this lowering."
"When interest rates are lowered to below what the market rate would normally be, as the Federal Reserve has done numerous times throughout this decade, it becomes much cheaper to borrow money. Longer-term and more capital-intensive projects, projects that would be unprofitable at a high interest rate, suddenly become profitable."
"Because the boom comes about from an increase in the supply of money and not from demand from consumers, the result is malinvestment, a misallocation of resources into sectors in which there is insufficient demand."
On my way to the Rutgers Library I was confronted by an older gentleman, probably late-50s or early - 60s, who was passing out flyers that read "STOP THE WAR." There were some photos on the flyers, most likely those evil imperialists Bush and Cheney, and there was also alot of writing, which was probably a long list supposed war crimes. I declined to take the flyer, because, well, I simply don't agree with the argument. After I declined, he made a snide comment that "If Bob were here he'd take one." (I was wearing a Bob Dylan t-shirt) To which I replied as I was walking away "I don't care." (I would have said something wittier, but I had work to do. Besides, I have a blog so I can tear his ass up here.) I was tempted to go into the library and print and pass out flyers that would have read "START MORE WARS," but the university's new printing policy prevented me from doing so. Instead I decided to let Penn and Teller rip apart World Peace.
I love Westbrook Pegler's damning critique the liberal embrace of those cancerous labor unions. I know it's not PC to read or cite Pegler, but despite the racists remarks he made in his last years, he was one of the earliest and most vocal critics of big government liberalism. (His editorials on FDR and the New Deal were devastating and right on the mark.) This editorial, "The Evolution of the Liberal," has stood the test of time and I believe it's still relevant today. Pegler wrote: "Back there in the early '20s when Scott Fitzgerald's cult of adolescent crying drunks were bawling that they had lost their souls, liberalism, as we understood it in this country, was first of all opposed to discipline or regimentation. Just for extra, and to make discipline or regimentation particularly odious to free people, it was called goose-stepping, a happy invention of our liberal epitheticians, which brought to mind in a word the detestable arrogance and brutality of the German Kaiser and his government. The Kaiser had just been slapped down and millions of men on the victorious side were breaking ranks and enjoying their release from the restraints and compulsions of military life. Behind them, millions of civilians, women as well as men, also were breaking ranks, so to speak, with the relaxation of the war-time restraints. The lights came on in the streets at night, it was no longer an offense not to draw the blinds at night after dark, you could criticize the government and books of the Now-It-Can-Be-Told series began to tumble off the presses in many languages."
"In the United States, prohibition appeared as a little red blotch, later to develop into a horrible corruption, which left permanent damage in contempt for law and suspicion of public officers long after repeal cured the disease itself, and great was the resentment against prohibition on the ground that a few politico-religious organizations and rich industrialists were trying to force most of the people to abide by the rule and conform to the tastes and an extreme moral verboten of a few."
"Of course, there was much more to liberalism, but the kernel of it was individual rights and rebellion against compulsion beyond the minimum restraints necessary for the regulation of traffic."
"Little did we think then that liberalism would curl up its tail and sting itself full of poison in its angry threshing before two decades had passed, but now ain't it the truth?"
"For today the surviving members of the group who fought most angrily against goose-stepping in the early '20s are almost all to be found in that element who hold that any worker who prefers to remain a loner, or individual, is a pathetic coward, a dirty traitor to his fellowmen, in receipt of secret pay from his boss, a mulish and selfish parasite, enjoying the benefits of other men's struggle and peril of a Fascist."
"Whatever he is, he has no right as an individual to conduct himself as an individual, and by trying to do so he exiles himself from human society, sets himself against his fellowmen and deserves any harm that befalls him in a contest of his own choosing. If he is thrown out of his job, in which it has been contended by the liberals that he has a property right, that is his own fault. If his family suffers mental and physical harassment and goes hungry and cold, that again is his fault, and the failure to protect and provide is his to answer for. If, by the verdict of a union of which he is not a member, after a trial in his absence, his is forever barred from all employment where unions govern the work, that again is his own lookout. He could avoid all these penalties, theoretically, if he would but join the union or walk the goose-step."
"The day came when liberal who had fiercely hated the goose-step, goose-stepped in a sort of prisoners'-march before premises struck by minority vote to revile individual men, stone them and beat them, for their refusal to submit to regimentation and discipline. And men who had insisted that they placed truth above all things so far abandoned their liberalism that they plainly admitted that they preferred to suppress, ignore or deny truths about corruption and a thousand forms of oppression in labor unions rather than hurt their new cause of regimentation or goose-stepping."
"The ball-bat and tire iron, the meat-hook and the brick are effective weapons for organization, but they do not appeal to reason."
Donald Gets Drafted
Der Fuehrer's Face
Education For Death
Sky Trooper
—Ronald Radosh
Everyone has biases. There is no escaping this. Nowhere is this truer than in academia, especially the field of history. Objectively, in its purest sense, can’t be obtained and therefore is no longer the goal among historians. Whether or not a historian is purposely injecting his…(yes I said just his because I’m tired of writing he/she and his/her and also this is my blog and I could care less about political correctness)…his political views he’s doing so in the types of sources he uses, theories he adopts, and subject matter he writes about. If you come across an article dealing with the gendered roles of African American lesbian postal workers in south central Los Angeles during the McCarthy era, then you can pretty much assume that the historian is a committed leftist. 
So, historians are always mingling scholarship and politics. For years I railed against this, but now I embrace the idea. However, I want to make the case that conservative historians should be granted the same luxury that leftist historians enjoy. I’m not saying that conservative historians don’t mix politics and scholarship because they do. Some of the best works produced by conservative historians, like John Lukacs, Forrest McDonald, Ronald Radosh, Allen Weinstein, and Victor Davis Hanson, have been deeply rooted in their own political philosophies. What I am sick and tired of is when these works are ridiculed and labeled as not serious scholarship because they come from the right. I remember last semester a professor making the statement that if you are a conservative historian, then you don’t matter in the profession. This is infuriating!!! What has left-wing history given us over the past two decades? Well, various histories of sex, objects (pencils, zippers, buttons, etc.), postmodernist mumbo jumbo, the social/cultural construction of everything, and American history as a long list of right-wing crimes.
Why should conservative historians not be allowed to mix politics and scholarship? A simple answer is that their political views are not politically correct. However, there is more to it. The subject matter that conservative historians choose to write about is viewed as old fashioned and not trendy or chic. They don’t write about the holy trinity of race, class, and gender or any other leftist topic. (I was sickened and enraged when I heard another professor state on Wednesday: “Race, class, and gender make up the Bermuda Triangle and if you forget about them you will be lost in the Bermuda Triangle.” Cute saying, but it’s completely asinine.) The subject matter that conservative historians examine is taboo. Many research dead white men and some commit and even graver sin by writing about figures such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. OH MY GOD!!!! OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!!! BURN THEIR FAMILIES AT THE STAKE!!!!! Many other conservative historians seek to expose left-wing gods as frauds and criminals like Ronald Radosh’s work on the Rosenbergs or Allen Weinstein’s book on Alger Hiss. If these people are exposed as what they were, spies, then the early years of the Cold War must be re-evaluated. Joe McCarthy might not have been so crazy and reckless after all.
Conservative historians, I would argue, tackle subjects that have much more significance than do most leftist historians. What is the importance of studies on the use of sex toys during the progressive period or works on the invention of the concept of the summer camp? They are not important at all, but are merely labeled as significant by leftist historians. I would value works that re-examine issues such as Federalist economic policies or even Jacksonian foreign policy over research on the subjects listed above.
The point I am trying to make is that conservative historians who mix their personal political philosophies with their scholarship should be accepted as scholars by the historical community as a whole. They should be judged on the merits of their research and writing. (My God I sound like an after school special) As an aspiring conservative historian I hope that my work would be judged not by my political beliefs, but on its quality. I also hope that the historical community will practice some of the liberal values that they preach and accept the fact that conservative historians have much to add to the field. Let’s make the profession more democratic. (If that’s the right word)
MSNBC's dissent into shameful liberal partisan politics seems to be almost complete. Chris Matthews is constantly becoming sexually excited on air whenever Obama speaks. Keith Olbermann is a complete asshole. The network yanked conservative Tucker Carlson off the air and the network's other token conservative Joe Scarborough has been sentenced to hosting a pitiful morning show. Now the 9 PM time slot has been filled with The Rachel Maddow Show. Maddow is nothing more than the female version of Keith Olbermann, who like Olbermann, is not funny and wastes most of her show reciting meaningless talking points. Not only does recite these talking points, but she smug about it. It is as if she believes that she knows just how all Americans feel and what they believe and (surprise, surprise) they all agree with her. On last night's show (I don't know why I was watching it) she joined in on the all out media assault on Sarah Palin by reciting common Democratic talking points to show that Palin is wrong on women's issues. All she really talked about was abortion and rape. Palin, i guess, opposes abortion and favors rape. First, not all women are pro-choice. Second, it is very condescending to make the claim that the only issues that women are concerned about are abortion and rape. Women also are concerned about the economy, national security as well as the other pressing issues of the day. Maddow's show is just the latest sad event in MSNBC's decline and fall from the soaring heights of media respectability.
This was posted on Pajamas Media today by historian Timothy Furnish and it takes on the ahistorical notion that "Jesus was a community organizer; Pilate was a governor."Furnish wrote: "My friend Rick Shenkman, who runs History News Network, recently published his new book Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth about the American Voter. Considering the legions of Democrats convinced that “Jesus was a community organizer; Pilate was a governor” qualifies as sound political discourse, I’d have to answer “pretty damn stupid.”"
"According to Rush Limbaugh (citing Lexis-Nexis), the phrase was devised on September 4, 2008, by a Washington Post blogger. As of this writing, 10 days later, Google lists 13,300 hits for the phrase. Most seem to be from the left-wing echo chambers of the Internet, where Daily Kosites, Huffingtonistas, and Obamists have separated virtual shoulders, giving each other electronic high-fives for their wit. But not all are e-cranks: no less a journalistic paragon than Tom Brokaw hit Rudy Giuliani with the phrase on the September 14 Meet the Press. And even some high-ranking Democrats have jumped on the bandwagon, most notably former Gore campaign chair and current DNC member Donna Brazile and Tennessee Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen. Brazile repeated the line on CNN last week, while Representative Cohen dredged it up on the House floor."
"The phrase was intended to counteract the anti-Obama jab by GOP vice-presidential candidate Governor Sarah Palin that even a small-town mayor — her job before becoming Alaska’s chief executive — has more responsibility than a community organizer, Obama’s self-described seminal experience. Palin was in turn responding to Democrat belittling of her as the “former mayor of a town of 9,000 people.” (Of course, they can’t exactly call her “the governor of a state as large in land area as all the blue states of 2004 combined.”)"
"This Democrat trope is qualitatively different than the preceding merely political barbs, however. By invoking the founder of the world’s largest religion — considered not merely human but divine by orthodox Christians for two millennia — as well as the Roman official who sentenced him to death, the Democrats are not just raising the insult bar but moving the rhetoric onto a field of battle that is supposed to be off limits."
Historian Larry Schweikart's new book, 48 Liberal Lies About American History, looks like a very interesting read. He takes on some of the lies that fill most college textbooks. Here is an interview with the author from FrontPageMag.com. Here is another interview from National Review Online. 
Historian Ronald Radosh has written on the recent confession of a Rosenberg co-defendent, which named the Rosenbergs as spies. Here are some excerpts from the article: "Julius and ethel Rosenberg were executed 55 years ago, on June 19, 1953. But last week, they were back in the headlines when Morton Sobell, the co-defendant in their famous espionage trial, finally admitted that he and his friend, Julius, had both been Soviet agents"
"It was a stunning admission; Sobell, now 91 years old, had adamantly maintained his innocence for more than half a century. After his comments were published, even the Rosenbergs' children, Robert and Michael Meeropol, were left with little hope to hang on to -- and this week, in comments unlike any they've made previously, the brothers acknowledged having reached the difficult conclusion that their father was, indeed, a spy. "I don't have any reason to doubt Morty," Michael Meeropol told Sam Roberts of the New York Times."
"With these latest events, the end has arrived for the legions of the American left wing that have argued relentlessly for more than half a century that the Rosenbergs were victims, framed by a hostile, fear-mongering U.S. government. Since the couple's trial, the left has portrayed them as martyrs for civil liberties, righteous dissenters whose chief crime was to express their constitutionally protected political beliefs. In the end, the left has argued, the two communists were put to death not for spying but for their unpopular opinions, at a time when the Truman and Eisenhower administrations were seeking to stem opposition to their anti-Soviet foreign policy during the Cold War."
" To this day, this received wisdom permeates our educational system. A recent study by historian Larry Schweikart of the University of Dayton has found that very few college history textbooks say simply that the Rosenbergs were guilty; according to Schweikart, most either state that the couple were innocent or that the trial was "controversial," or they "excuse what [the Rosenbergs] did by saying, 'It wasn't that bad. What they provided wasn't important.'"
"Indeed, Columbia University professor Eric Foner once wrote that the Rosenbergs were prosecuted out of a "determined effort to root out dissent," part of a broader pattern of "shattered careers and suppressed civil liberties." In other words, it was part of the postwar McCarthyite "witch hunt.""
"But, in fact, Schweikart is right, and Foner is wrong. The Rosenbergs were Soviet spies, and not minor ones either. Not only did they try their best to give the Soviets top atomic secrets from the Manhattan Project, they succeeded in handing over top military data on sonar and on radar that was used by the Russians to shoot down American planes in the Korean and Vietnam wars. That's long been known, and Sobell confirmed it again last week."
"To many Americans, Cold War espionage cases like the Rosenberg and Alger Hiss cases that once riveted the country seem irrelevant today, something out of the distant past. But they're not irrelevant. They're a crucial part of the ongoing dispute between right and left in this country. For the left, it has long been an article of faith that these prosecutions showed the essentially repressive nature of the U.S. government. Even as the guilt of the accused has become more and more clear (especially since the fall of the Soviet Union and the release of reams of historical Cold War documents), these "anti anti-communists" of the intellectual left have continued to argue that the prosecutions were overzealous, or that the crimes were minor, or that the punishments were disproportionate."
"The left has consistently defended spies such as Hiss, the Rosenbergs and Sobell as victims of contrived frame-ups. Because a demagogue like Sen. Joseph McCarthy cast a wide swath with indiscriminate attacks on genuine liberals as "reds" (and even though McCarthy made some charges that were accurate), the anti anti-communists came to argue that anyone accused by McCarthy or Richard Nixon or J. Edgar Hoover should be assumed to be entirely innocent. People like Hiss (a former State Department official who was accused of spying) cleverly hid their true espionage work by gaining sympathy as just another victim of a smear attack."
"But now, with Sobell's confession of guilt, that worldview has been demolished..."
Whoopi Goldberg's recent mocking of John McCain on The View is particularly maddening as both a historian and a libertarian/conservative. I am sure that everybody has seen the clip by now but here it is anyway:
"Should I be worried about slavery?" This is just insulting to McCain because it paints him, as well as other people favoring a stricter interpretation of the Constitution, as not only wrong, but bigoted racists as well. Of course, if I were McCain I would have made light of the situation and jokingly said "yes."
This attack besides being smug also displays Whoopi's ignorance. First of all, the Constitution did not legalize slavery because it was already legalized in various states at the time of ratification. There was a general consensus among the founders that slavery was an issue for the states to decide. There was also a consensus that slavery was a dying institution, which is evidenced in the clause that outlawed the Atlantic slave trade in the year 1808.
Yes, Whoopi, slavery was legal in several states at the time the Consitution was ratified. Many founders did own slaves, but slavery was not legalized in the Constitution. Being a strict constituionalist does not mean that you are a racist, but it does mean that you believe that there is a limit to what the constitution will allow. Those who are strict constitutionalists do not believe that one can just imagine various rights and then use to filmest of constitutional arguments to support them. Why does The View continue to give a soap box to moronic radicals like Whoopi, Joy, and Rosie?
Lerone Bennett recently gave a lecture on Abraham Lincoln's "true" legacy as a racist, hate filled demon that wished to make America a white nation. Thankfully the crowd that gathered to hear this disgusting brand of pseudo-history numbered under fifty. The Ithaca Journal reported:
"“He was not a great emancipator, he was not a small emancipator, he was not even a regular-sized emancipator,” Bennett said, drawing laughs."
Bennett a raised the usual half-baked arguments such as this: "“The Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves; the 13th Amendment to the Constitution freed the slaves. If you meet a historian in Ithaca who says the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves, call the police — because you are either dealing with a charlatan or an innocent who needs to be protected from himself.”"
Yes, Mr. Bennett, the Emancipation Proclamation itself did not free any slaves. And yes it was the 13th Amendment that officially freed all the Nation's slaves. However, the proclamation gave authority to the Union Army to free any slave that they came across throughout the South. With the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln made emancipation the policy of the executive branch and the US military. After January 1, 1863 all Union Armies were now made into a tool of emancipation. Bennett, in his book Forced Into Glory, made a habit ignoring this fact because it did not fit the story he was trying to tell.
Bennett also ignored that many former slaves, as historian Allen Guelzo has argued, dated their freedom to the day that they heard about the proclamation. Lincoln didn't physically free the slaves, but rather most slaves freed themselves. Lincoln's proclamation, however, made sure that those who ran away to Union armies were not returned to their masters.
Bennett also made the claim that Lincoln "opposed equal rights for blacks and Latinos, and supported the deportation of all blacks living in the states. As a lawyer in Illinois, Lincoln sent runaway slaves back to slavery, he said."
Where do I start? The issue of Latino rights in 1863 was not a pressing issue because outside of Texas, California, and the lands of the Mexican Cession there were not that many Latinos living in the United States.
Lincoln was opposed to equal rights for blacks as was just about everyone else in America. Here is where I will make a concession to Bennett. Lincoln did hold some racist views, which was normal for the era. He did not think that blacks were equal to whites, but he also didn't think that they should be slaves. Lincoln also favored giving blacks the right to vote, which is what some historians believe was a deciding factor in his murder at the hands of John Wilkes Booth.
Bennett was partially correct when he argued that Lincoln wanted to deport all African Americans to Latin America or Africa. Lincoln did favor colonization for a brief time because he believed that blacks and whites would not be able to live peacefully with each other. He quickly abandoned this scheme when he was met by fierce resistance on the part of many black leaders including Frederick Douglass. Lincoln's colonization scheme was just one of many ideas that he proposed to solve the slavery problem. 
I will make another concession to Bennett. Lincoln, as an Illinois lawyer, did return a slave to slavery. He hated the institution of slavery, which is generally accepted among historians, but Lincoln was also a firm believer in the supremacy of the law over personal beliefs. This was an unfortunate episode in Lincoln's law career, but it should in no way be interpreted as anything other than a dumb choice on the part of Lincoln.
Over the years, Bennett has garnered some praise for his stance on Lincoln's legacy, but those who offer this praise are usually other Lincoln hating, pseudo-historians. Bennett should not be and is not taken seriously by professional historians. He has revealed himself to be exactly what he accuses Lincoln of being: a hateful, bigoted, racist, shameful, disgusting man.
For those who want to read a much better analysis of Lincoln the emancipator, I recommend reading Allen Guelzo's Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Guelzo's book also contains a devastating critique of Bennett's 600 plus page screed, Forced into Glory.
HBO is currently developing a mini-series on the Lincoln assassination, which will be based on James L. Swanson's Manhunt. This could be interesting because HBO has made some really good historical mini-series such as Band of Brothers and John Adams. Broadcasting & Cable reported: "The project reunites the network with the creative forces behind two of its former critical hit series—Simon created The Wire and Fontana created Oz—as well as the two writers themselves. Simon and Fontana have not collaborated since Fontana turned Simon's book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets into the cop drama Homicide for NBC."
" The would-be mini comes at a time when HBO has continued to find critical and viewership success with miniseries while struggling to mount new, enduring series hits. HBO posted a less-than-spectacular open for its most recent series debut, the heavily marketed vampire drama True Blood, which attracted 1.4 million viewers to its Sept. 7 premiere. It was an anemic debut compared to recent HBO drama premieres including Big Love (4.6 million), Rome (3.8 million) and the failed John From Cincinnati (3.4 million)."
'It also comes on the heels of another HBO miniseries in the American history genre, John Adams, which enjoyed critical and viewership success, and piqued Fontana's attention."
"A history buff, Fontana's historical métier is the American Revolution and the Lincoln assassination. Fontana, in fact, grafted his Lincoln obsession onto one of his Homicide characters. Simon also possesses more than a passing interest in the Lincoln assassination."
The last paragraph of this article is interesting. It states:
"For Simon, Lincoln's murder took on new relevancy with the Bush administration's post-9/11 policies. “People have been fascinated by the Lincoln assassination since it happened,” he says. “It's a pivotal moment in American history. The stakes were extremely high for the nation as a whole. The characters are grandly dramatic. So there would be reasons enough to be interested even if it were all an anachronism. But I don't think it is an anachronism. If you look at everything from Guantanamo to the Patriot Act to the debate over military tribunals versus civil prosecution, there's a lot of analogous stuff.”"
What?! So, they are going to use the Lincoln assassination to make a statement about the Bush Administration? Really? As someone who is training to be a historian this really angers me. One historical era or event can not be used to describe another, much later era. To compare the aftermath of the Civil War to the War on Terror is just foolish and bad historical thinking. I am guessing that the film makers want to make the argument that the Lincoln assassination led to a period of paranoia and the abuse of power on the part of the federal government. Civil liberties were trampled upon and a "nation" (the Confederacy) was occupied by an invading army which was to be challenged by heroic insurgents in bed sheets and hoods. This is stupid. I do want to see a mini-series about the Lincoln assassination get made, but I hope that the film makers do not try to play petty, partisan politics with the subject matter.
For anyone interested: About ten years ago TNT made a movie on the Lincoln assassination entitled The Day Lincoln Was Shot. The movie was based on Jim Bishop's book also titled The Day Lincoln Was Shot. The movie was OK, but pales in comparison to other Ted Turner Civil War films.
Jay Winter's Remembering War is a rigorous, but interesting, examination of the collective remembrances of the Great War. This book is a far cry from most other works on World War I because it does not deal with battles, generals and politicians. Winter's main focus is on memory and remembrance. How was the war remembered? How were the participants, dead and living, memorialized? Winter argued that there have been many ways to remember the war and that it is remembered in differently among diverse groups. Winter has drawn on 'traditional' and 'non-traditional' sources to construct a fascinating analysis of remembrance and memory. The most interesting source used by Winter is television. Television has been an important medium that has helped to influence how the Great War is remembered.
The down side of this book is that it is weighed down with theory at times. Unless the reader is familiar with postmodernist and literary theory, then he/she will may get lost from time to time.
From the publisher:
"This is a masterful volume on remembrance and war in the twentieth century. Jay Winter locates the fascination with the subject of memory within a long-term trajectory that focuses on the Great War. Images, languages, and practices that appeared during and after the two world wars focused on the need to acknowledge the victims of war and shaped the ways in which future conflicts were imagined and remembered. At the core of the “memory boom” is an array of collective meditations on war and the victims of war, Winter says."
"The book begins by tracing the origins of contemporary interest in memory, then describes practices of remembrance that have linked history and memory, particularly in the first half of the twentieth century. The author also considers “theaters of memory”—film, television, museums, and war crimes trials in which the past is seen through public representations of memories. The book concludes with reflections on the significance of these practices for the cultural history of the twentieth century as a whole."
This is an interesting op-ed by Fouad Ajami from the Wall Street Journal, which highlights the differences between Barack Obama's and John McCain's proposed foreign policies. Here are some excerpts:"The candidacy of Barack Obama seems to have lost some of its luster of late, and I suspect this has something to do with large questions many Americans still harbor about his view of the dangerous world around us. Those questions were not stilled by the choice of Joe Biden as his running mate."
"To be sure, the Delaware senator is a man of unfailing decency and deep legislative experience; and his foreign policy preferences are reflective of the liberal internationalist outlook that once prevailed in the Democratic Party. To his honor and good name, Sen. Biden took a leading role in pushing for the use of American military power in the Balkans when the Muslims of Bosnia were faced with grave dangers a dozen years ago. Patriotism does not embarrass this man in the way it does so many in the liberal elite. But as Bob Woodward is the latest to remind us, it is presidents, not their understudies, who shape the destiny of nations."
"So the Obama candidacy must be judged on its own merits, and it can be reckoned as the sharpest break yet with the national consensus over American foreign policy after World War II. This is not only a matter of Sen. Obama's own sensibility; the break with the consensus over American exceptionalism and America's claims and burdens abroad is the choice of the activists and elites of the Democratic Party who propelled Mr. Obama's rise."
"Though the staging in Denver was the obligatory attempt to present the Obama Democrats as men and women of the political center, the Illinois senator and his devotees are disaffected with American power. In their view, we can make our way in the world without the encumbrance of "hard" power. We would offer other nations apologies for the way we carried ourselves in the aftermath of 9/11, and the foreign world would be glad for a reprieve from the time of American certitude."
Ajami continued:
"When we elect a president, we elect a commander in chief. This remains an imperial republic with military obligations and a military calling. That is why Eisenhower overwhelmed Stevenson, Reagan's swagger swept Carter out of office, Bush senior defeated Dukakis, etc."
"The exception was Bill Clinton, with his twin victories over two veterans of World War II. We had taken a holiday from history -- but 9/11 awakened us to history's complications. Is it any wonder that Hillary Clinton feigned the posture of a muscular American warrior, and carried the working class with her?"
"The warrior's garb sits uneasily on Barack Obama's shoulders: Mr. Obama seeks to reassure Americans that he and his supporters are heirs of Roosevelt and Kennedy; that he, too, could order soldiers to war, stand up to autocracies and rogue regimes. But the widespread skepticism about his ability to do so is warranted."
"The crowds in Berlin and Paris that took to him knew their man. He had once presented his willingness to negotiate with Iran as the mark of his diplomacy, the break with the Bush years and the Bush style. But he stepped back from that pledge, and in a blatant echo of President Bush's mantra on Iran, he was to say that "no options would be off the table" when dealing with Iran. The change came on a visit to Israel, the conversion transparent and not particularly convincing."
I think it is imperative that as a history grad student I should read Gordon S. Wood's The Purpose of the Past. Here are some excerpts from historian Douglas Brinkley's L. A. Times review: "Ever since Gordon S. Wood's "The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787" was published in 1969 -- and won the prestigious Bancroft Prize -- his books have epitomized the best in American historiography. His pitch-perfect erudition is legendary. Wood's superb 1991 book, "The Radicalism of the American Revolution," won the Pulitzer Prize. The Brown University historian is now the go-to scholar on the American Revolution, the Federalist Papers, the U.S. Constitution and the Jeffersonian era. When Wood -- impeccable in his academic scholarship, never overstating an idea or padding an anecdote -- publishes, other historians pay attention. And in his sixth book, "The Purpose of the Past," he makes it abundantly clear that postmodern historical scholarship is far too self-referential. A solid work of history, he argues, shouldn't tell readers "more about the historian than the events he or she is presumably recounting.""
""The Purpose of the Past" is a fine collection of Wood's best long-form book reviews from the New York Review of Books and the New Republic. It begins with a meditation on Garry Wills' extraordinary "Explaining America" (1981) and ends with a dissection of Robin L. Einhorn's pioneering "American Taxation, American Slavery" (2006). But Wood has added an afterword, a careful analysis of the long-term significance of each book through the lens of hindsight. You might say he is, in essence, reviewing his own reviews."
"Frequently in "The Purpose of the Past," Wood sings the praises of historians he admires (Charles Royster, "The Fabulous History of the Dismal Swamp Company"; David Hackett Fischer, "Albion's Seed"). But Wood is not a puff-job specialist: Relishing his self-anointed role as arbiter of what constitutes real history, he denigrates the work of such notable practitioners of history as Simon Schama, John Patrick Diggins and Richard K. Matthews. And while he touts the virtues of political history, he also warns against letting modern political views infect the work he loves so dearly. "I am reminded of Rebecca West's wise observation that when politics comes in the door, truth flies out the window. Historians who want to influence politics with their history writing have missed the point of the craft; they ought to run for office.""
This was posted on RealClearPolitics by Tammy Bruce: "In the shadow of the blatant and truly stunning sexism launched against the Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign, and as a pro-choice feminist, I wasn't the only one thrilled to hear Republican John McCain announce Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. For the GOP, she bridges for conservatives and independents what I term "the enthusiasm gap" for the ticket. For Democrats, she offers something even more compelling - a chance to vote for a someone who is her own woman, and who represents a party that, while we don't agree on all the issues, at least respects women enough to take them seriously."
"Whether we have a D, R or an "i for independent" after our names, women share a different life experience from men, and we bring that difference to the choices we make and the decisions we come to. Having a woman in the White House, and not as The Spouse, is a change whose time has come, despite the fact that some Democratic Party leaders have decided otherwise. But with the Palin nomination, maybe they'll realize it's not up to them any longer."...
"The rank bullying of the Clinton candidacy during the primary season has the distinction of simply being the first revelation of how misogynistic the party has become. The media led the assault, then the Obama campaign continued it. Trailblazer Geraldine Ferraro, who was the first Democratic vice presidential candidate, was so taken aback by the attacks that she publicly decried nominee Barack Obama as "terribly sexist" and openly criticized party chairman Howard Dean for his remarkable silence on the obvious sexism."
Bruce continued:
"Virtually moments after the GOP announcement of Palin for vice president, pundits on both sides of the aisle began to wonder if Clinton supporters - pro-choice women and gays to be specific - would be attracted to the McCain-Palin ticket. The answer is, of course. There is a point where all of our issues, including abortion rights, are made safer not only if the people we vote for agree with us - but when those people and our society embrace a respect for women and promote policies that increase our personal wealth, power and political influence."
"Make no mistake - the Democratic Party and its nominee have created the powerhouse that is Sarah Palin, and the party's increased attacks on her (and even on her daughter) reflect that panic."
She went on to state:
"Yes, both McCain and Palin identify as anti-abortion, but neither has led a political life with that belief, or their other religious principles, as their signature issue. Politicians act on their passions - the passion of McCain and Palin is reform. In her time in office, Palin's focus has not been to kick the gays and make abortion illegal; it has been to kick the corrupt and make wasteful spending illegal. The Republicans are now making direct appeals to Clinton supporters, knowingly crafting a political base that would include pro-choice voters."
"On the day McCain announced her selection as his running mate, Palin thanked Clinton and Ferraro for blazing her trail. A day later, Ferraro noted her shock at Palin's comment. You see, none of her peers, no one, had ever publicly thanked her in the 24 years since her historic run for the White House. Ferraro has since refused to divulge for whom she's voting. Many more now are realizing that it does indeed take a woman - who happens to be a Republican named Sarah Palin."
Are the Democrats in trouble? Dick Morris and Eileen McGann seem to think so and I do as well. It is surprising that Barack Obama has not been able to pull away from John McCain in national polls. The month of August witnessed the McCain Campaign gain momentum. The pick of Sarah Palin has seemed to energized the Republican base and many conservatives feel that they have found their Barack Obama. (Evidence of the excitement generated by Palin can be seen in the number people that watched her speech on Wednesday night: 38 million people tuned into watch Obama's acceptance speech and 37 million watched Palin) This is going to be an interesting two months.
Here's what Morris and McGann:
"The convention floor was abuzz all yesterday with the news of the CBS poll showing a dead tie (42-42) in the presidential race. And the poll, conducted through Wednesday, couldn't reflect the impact of John McCain's speech, or the full impact of Sarah Palin's late Wednesday night. It reflected opinions only after the Democrats' convention, Barack Obama's incredible speech, the Palin selection and the early, Gustav-depressed GOP gathering."
"That augers ill for the Democrats. Tonight's polling could bring evidence that the Obama candidacy is in big trouble."
"First, the GOP convention managed to disprove the central premise of the Democratic assault on McCain: that he is a clone of President Bush. The Republicans wisely marginalized Bush to a non-prime-time videotaped speech, and sprinkled disappearing dust on Dick Cheney."
"The speeches, and the very fact of the Palin designation, repudiated Washington and focused on how McCain is an agent of change - this ticket is populist, reformist, anti-establishment, grass-roots and anti-corruption."
Once again I came across another great video on Civil War Memory.
These were two good speeches by Rudy Giuliani and VP candidate Sarah Palin that took the fight directly to Barack Obama.
I received this comment on my post on the general misunderstanding of the public in regards to what is history. Here is the comment:
“This is what I can't stand about academia. Yeah, you're smarter than a lot of people. Get off your high horse and listen to that person. They probably will tell you something incorrect or something that you already know, but they might not. By underestimating the public, you dissuade the public from entering your field. History isn't any different than other subjects- you can learn about it, to an extent, on your own. I'm not discrediting the work that you have done, I really do respect it. I aspire to become a historian- but I don't want to lose my humbleness as I work.”
Where do I start with this comment? This person clearly did not understand the point of my previous post. So I’m going to climb down off my “high horse” and clarify some things and in the meantime, hopefully, poke holes in the comment.
First of all, this is a very good example of the public’s misunderstanding of history. Well, it’s not about getting facts correct or incorrect. Though I am told some outrageous things that people believed happened in the past, this is not what historians do. But let me move away from this issue.
Next point, the post wasn’t about me underestimating the general public, but rather the public’s misunderstanding of what it is that historians do in their profession. As far as dissuading people from entering my field, well, I don’t care if the people want to enter my field or not. Just do not tell me what history is!
Now the point about history not being any different than other subjects and that anyone can learn history and they can do so on their own. I will make a concession, like other subjects, history can be learned by anybody. This point is true, but to claim that you can do so on your own, which is what I used to think, is preposterous. One can read books, like those written by David McCullough and text books, which will give a general outline about the past which can be useful, but will leave them lacking a true historical understanding of the past. There are many important things that one cannot learn by reading horrible Cokie Roberts books and other popular histories. For example, sitting around reading books will not teach a person how to properly interrogate primary sources. It will not teach someone how to read what is not written in primary sources. Cokie Roberts, David McCullough, and others will not teach someone how to construct a complex historical argument. Those authors will not even teach someone how to construct a simple argument because they tell stories and don’t debate the past.
Oh yeah, I don’t consider myself a member of academe because I feel that those how are academics have such a mortifying an acerbic disgust for the public. I don’t hate the public, but I am increasingly angered and frustrated by the public’s total lack of understanding of what it is that historians do. Besides I believe that they, academics, are not doing a thorough job writing history for the general public, which is just as maddening as this commenter. Historians should write for the public. History is for the masses, but they deserve good history. David Hackett Fischer, James McPherson, Gordon S. Wood, and Eric Foner are great examples of academics that write for the public. This is the kind of history that the public deserves.
There are many things I love about being a student of history. For instance, I love engaging in debate with fellow students about the “Revolution of 1800,” which brought Thomas Jefferson to the presidency. I also greatly enjoy spending hours reading books and essays and then discussing how each historian crafted his or her argument. I could go on about all that I love about being a historian-in-training because the pleasures of this field of inquiry are boundless.
As with any other academic field, there’s plenty of bad to go along with the good. Though there are plenty of irritants within the field that annoy and anger me (postmodernism being the most infuriating), there are countless attitudes and ideas outside the field that are just as if not more irksome.
What I am talking about is a total lack of knowledge on the part of non-historians (mostly lay persons) about what historical study entails. This is maddening by itself, but when it is accompanied by a sense among non-historians that they know what history is, well, that is just unbearable. Why do non-historians, the public in particular, feel the need to lecture me on what is history? A non-lawyer would not lecture a lawyer or a law student on how to file a motion to suppress. (Though I have seen people with no training in law attempt to lecture a law student on certain legal issues) A non-medical doctor would not lecture a doctor on how best to deal with a certain ailment. So why is it acceptable for non-historians to tell me what it is that historians do and what should be considered history?
One of the many things that non-historians say that annoys me is: “It’s the past and it either happened or it didn’t.” I have been studying history and working toward becoming a professional in the field for over half a decade now and I would argue that if study of history is that simple, then I have wasted years and thousands of dollars on training in this field. This may come as a shock to non-historians, but history is not that clear cut. It is not debating whether something happened or not. One can even argue, as postmodernists do, that we cannot truly be sure whether anything has ever happened. The line of thought that leads to the idea that something either happened or it didn’t arises out sheer ignorance of the past and its students.
Another misconception, which can be coupled with the above mentioned irritant, is the notion that history is the memorization of names, dates, and facts. When people find out that I am a graduate student in a history program they inevitably say either one of two things. One: “I always liked history because I was always good at remembering names and dates.” I would also hear the opposite statement: “I hated history because I wasn’t any good at memorizing things.” Once again, if the study of history centered on the memorization of names and dates, then I have been wasting much of my life in this field of study.
When it comes time for me to explain to someone that history is not as simple as they think I am usually met with blank stares. I inform people that I’m not spending my time memorizing trivia, but rather trying to understand how and why certain events happened. I studying the past in order to understand it and then explain it to others. I tell them that much of what I do is dissecting complex arguments and trying to construct arguments of my own. This is much different than the commonly held view of historical study. So, I am not surprised at the blank stares that greet this revelation. After all, the study of history in our public school system is atrocious. History classes in public schools are structured in such a way that students are only expected to learn names and dates. Not to mention most of the history that the public consumes is written by non-professional historians like David McCullough. Now, unlike other graduate students and professors, I enjoy reading the works of popular historians including McCullough, but these books just tell a story and don’t try to understand the past. Stories are for novelists to write and not historians. I am not a proponent of injecting historical writing with useless and dense theory, but a historian should at least make an argument and then support that argument with inferences drawn from letters, diaries, newspapers, and other primary sources.
I consider myself a populist when it comes to the writing of history. I am one of the few that believes that history should be written for the masses and not for a small population of academics. However, history should be done properly and if it is not then it can be of no use to the public. I also believe that non-historians can write and should be able to write history, but they should conform to the standards that professional historians set for themselves in their study of the past. All in all, I hope the public perception of the study of history changes, but it probably will not.
After Bush, by Timothy J. Lynch and Robert S. Singh, looks to be an interesting read and is on the long list of books that I hope to read in the up coming months. From the publisher:
"Towards the end of his second term, it appears George W. Bush’s foreign policy has won few admirers, with pundits and politicians eagerly and opportunistically bashing the tenets of the Bush Doctrine. This provocative account dares to counter the dogma of Bush’s Beltway detractors and his ideological enemies, boldly arguing that Bush’s policy deservedly belongs within the mainstream of the American foreign policy tradition. Though the shifting tide of public opinion has led many to anticipate that his successor will repudiate the actions of the past eight years, authors Timothy Lynch and Robert S. Singh suggest that there will—and should—be continuity in US foreign policy from his Presidency to those who follow. Providing a positive audit of the war on terror (which they contend should be understood as a Second Cold War) they charge that the Bush Doctrine has been consistent with past foreign policies—from Republican and Democratic presidencies—and that the key elements of Bush’s grand strategy will rightly continue to shape America’s approach in the future. Above all, they predict that his successors will pursue the war against Islamist terror with similar dedication."
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