Thanks to Aaron
David Kaiser is a respected historian whose published works have covered a broad range of topics, from European Warfare to American League Baseball.
Born in 1947, the son of a diplomat, Kaiser spent his childhood in three capital cities: Washington D.C. , Albany , New York , and Dakar , Senegal .. He attended Harvard University, graduating there in 1969 with a B.A. in history.
He then spent several years more at Harvard, gaining a PhD in history, which he obtained in 1976. He served in the Army Reserve from 1970 to 1976.
He is a professor in the Strategy and Policy Department of the United States Naval War College. He has previously taught at Carnegie Mellon, Williams College and Harvard University. Kaiser's latest book, The Road to Dallas, about the Kennedy assassination, was just published by Harvard University Press.
Dr. David Kaiser
History Unfolding
I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books on history that have been published in six languages, and I have studied history all my life. I have come to think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is simply a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus..
Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it.
Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten to fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.
We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back? Why?
We learned just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms.
That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the $700 billion we all argued about so strenuously just this past September. Who has this money? Why do they have it?
Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of "we the people," who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.
We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy.. Why?
We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving.
Students, by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?
We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it simply wants marriage to remain defined as between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?)
We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?
Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, social security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government.
Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and I know precisely what I am talking about) - the list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth. It is potentially 1929 x ten...
And we are at war with an enemy we cannot even name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who, in turn, cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.
And finally, we have elected a man that no one really knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla , Alaska ..
All
of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in
their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him,
drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright
scary.
Surely you have heard him speak about his idea
to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than
our military for use inside our borders?
No? Oh, of course.. The media would never
play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it.
Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe are
more important.
Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled
down to one word: Change. Why?
I have never been so afraid
for my country and for my children as I am now.
This
man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never,
ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide
us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the
pieces into a new and different power structure.
Change is indeed coming. And when it
comes, you will never see the same nation again.
And that is
only the beginning.
As a serious
student of history, I thought I would never come to experience what
the ordinary, moral German must have felt in the mid-1930s In those
times, the "savior" was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from
the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing.
What
they should have known was that he was associated with groups
that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they
disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through
great oratory. Conservative "losers" read it
right now.
And there were the promises. Economic times
were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he
smiled and frowned and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers,
were afraid to speak out for fear that his "brown shirts" would bully
and beat them into submission. Which they did - regularly. And
then, he was duly elected to office, while a full-throttled economic
crisis bloomed at hand - the Great Depression. Slowly, but surely
he seized the controls of government power, person by person,
department by department, bureaucracy by bureaucracy..
The children
of German citizens were at first, encouraged to join a Youth
Movement in his name where they were taught exactly what to think.
Later, they were required to do so. No Jews of course,
How did he get people on his side? He did it by
promising jobs to the jobless, money to the money-less, and rewards for
the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the
children, advocating gun control, health care for all,
better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once
again in the country, across Europe , and across the world. He did it with a
compliant media - did you know that? And he did this all in the
name of justice and ... . .. change. And the people surely got
what they voted for.
If you think I am exaggerating, look it up.
It's all there in the history books.
So read your history
books. Many people of conscience objected in 1933 and were shouted down,
called names, laughed at, and ridiculed.
When Winston
Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the
House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime
Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy
troublemaker. He was right, though. And the world came to regret that he
was not listened to.
Do not forget that Germany was the most educated, the most
cultured country in Europe.
It was
full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities.
And yet, in
less than six years (a shorter time span than just two terms of
the U. S. presidency) it was rounding up its own citizens,
killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against
parents, and neighbors against neighbors.. All with the best of
intentions, of course.. The road to Hell is paved with
them.
As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to
emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe
what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make
me cringe with disgust);
I can
believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm
of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes,
having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around
me..
I choose to believe the evidence. No doubt some
people will scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or
both. To some degree, perhaps I am. But I have never
been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I
believe-and why I believe it.
I pray I
am wrong. I do not think I am.
Perhaps the only hope is our vote in the next
elections.
David Kaiser
Jamestown ,
Rhode
Island
United
States
great new conservative books
going rogue by sarah palin
culture of curuption by michelle malkin
do the right thing by mike huckabee
from hope to higher ground by mike huckabee
after the game by norman c chastain
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