A little bit of history repeating

Thursday, August 16, 2007 – Page 3

“A nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it.” ~ Sir Winston Churchill

“The word is about, there’s something evolving,whatever may come, the world keeps revolving They say the next big thing is here, that the revolution’s near, but to me it seems quite clear that it’s all just a little bit of history repeating”
~Shirley Bassey and the Propellerheads
Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper — Schleswig Leader,

Maybe I’m more prone to notice these things because I majored in History in college and used to teach it in High School, but I’ve noticed some eerie similarities between our own times and some previous historical eras.

One is what Mark Twain called “the Gilded Age.”

The Gilded age was characterized by an upper class that loved to show off their wealth. The new rich, whether by ruthless business practices, lucky speculation in the markets or by easy credit indulged in leisure and excess like never before in America.

Sort of reminds you of all the HumVees and plasma TVs going around.

But the point Mark Twain was trying to make by calling it a “gilded” age, was that you can paint rot iron with gold leaf so that it looks elegant, but it will still rust and corrode underneath.
Like the turn of the last century, we too are letting our leaders and giant corporations get away with abuse of power, fraud and corruption. And like the last Gilded Age, we’re experiencing a huge and widening gap between super rich and working poor. Meanwhile, the middle-class is shrinking.

According to a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor, 1% or Americans have 15% of the money. One one thousandth (0.1 %) of the population has between 6 and 10 % of the wealth. These folks saw a 497% increase in their wealth since 1972.

We can see hints of a new “Progressive Era” on the horizon- Lord knows we could use a guy like Teddy Roosevelt again. But what preceded Teddy Roosevelt was a depression. A lot like the one that preceded his cousin Franklin. Let’s hope we’re not headed down that road again.
Over the last four years, tons of people have tried to compare the war in Vietnam to the War in Iraq. On the contrary, I think it’s worth the time to contrast the differences between the two.
We feared that Vietnam would be the first domino to lead the whole Far East to fall to communism.

We figured if we could make Iraq a Western style capitalist democracy, we’d have enough oil, military bases and influence on the Middle East that neither Al Queda or Iran could threaten our interests anymore.

Democratic Presidents got us into Vietnam and left it to a Republican to. A Republican got us into Iraq and feels no compunction whatsoever about leaving it to the next administration to clean up.

‘Nam had hot steamy jungles, Iraq has hot dry deserts.

Protesters marched and occupied college and government buildings to end the Vietnam War. Bloggers whine about Washington on the internet to try to get us out of Iraq.

Working class Joes and minorities got drafted to Vietnam. Politicians know if there was a draft protesters might march and occupy buildings again, so instead they keep increasing the length of soldier’s tours of duty.

George W. Bush went AWOL from the Florida National Guard but never had to serve in Vietnam. Since there’s no draft, National Guardsmen and women are bearing the brunt of the war in Iraq.

Not only are the Gilded age and Vietnam Era replaying themselves, but so is Watergate. But again, there are major differences between Nixon and Bush.

Psychologists would classify Nixon as a Paranoid with tendencies toward Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. He kept meticulous diaries of his minute-by-minute activities. He agonized over what people thought of him.

Bush is just the opposite. He doesn’t bother reading presidential briefings, and seems to be oblivious to the feelings, opinions, and contributions of others. Webster’s has a word for someone “characterized by defective or lost contact with reality especially as evidenced by delusions... and disorganized speech and behavior.”

The word is “Psychotic.