A SHORT HISTORY OF RIGHT WING DESTRUCTION PART 12

President Eisenhower was a Republican and would probably be considered much too liberal in today's Republican party.  Eisenhower didn't set out to destroy the New Deal programs that had proven both popular and successful.  He was responsible for building an interstate highway system that made travel much easier across the country.

Eisenhower,probably reluctantly, used the National Guard to enforce desegregation in Arkansas after the Supreme Court's Brown vs. Topeka decision.  The Court declared that the doctrine of "separate but equal" was unconstitutional.

Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus was defiant.  Faubus ordered National Guardsmen to block the entry of African-American students to Little Rock's Central High School.  Faubus used the blatantly transparent lie that it was necessary to prevent mob violence.  But Eisenhower successfully enforced the Supreme Court's decision.

The tensions of the Cold War were always a concern.  The Soviet Union upstaged the United States in 1957 with the launch of its Sputnik satellite and aroused concern that the United States was falling behind the Soviet Union technologically and scientifically.

The Eisenhower years were also marked by economic recessions, which have been consistent with Republican administrations.

More to come

 A SHORT HISTORY OF RIGHT WING DESTRUCTION PART 11

President Truman surprisingly won reelection in 1948 and then we entered the fearful and paranoid 1950's.

We found ourselves in another war in Korea, although it technically was a United Nations effort to stop Communists from overrunning South Korea.  General MacArthur, hero of the Second World War, was fired by President Truman for what amounted to insubordination and made his famous statement, "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away."

Another World War II hero, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, was nominated by the Republican Party to run for president.  Richard M. Nixon was his running mate.  Nixon, caught up in the first major scandal of his career, made his famous "Checkers" speech and told us about Pat Nixon's cloth coat.

Eisenhower defeated Adlai Stevenson and moved into the White House.

Anti-communism was a prime talking point for Republicans.  Richard Nixon vaulted his career in his pursuit of Alger Hiss, who was accused of being a Communist.  Hiss was convicted on a perjury charge and sentenced to prison.

One of the most infamous politicians in U. S. history, Joseph McCarthy, put the Communist threat or perceived threat on the national agenda.  McCarthy, a Republican Senator from Wisconsin, made wild charges implying that Communists had infiltrated the highest levels of the U. S. government.  McCarthy and others were responsible for blacklists of Americans who had been convicted of nothing, but were suspected of being Communists.  They frequently lost their livelihoods and their reputations thanks to the Communist witch hunt launched by McCarthy.

More to come

A SHORT HISTORY OF RIGHT WING DESTRUCTION PART 10

We entered a totally new world at the end of the Second World War.  Two atomic bombs had been dropped on Japan and there was no turning back from the nuclear age.

Europe was in ruins.  We discovered the horrors of the Holocaust.  The Soviet Union, formerly an ally, became an enemy.

Harry Truman carried on in the tradition of FDR with his "Fair Deal."  The United States faced the daunting and happy prospect of reintegrating millions of returning military veterans into the economy.  Women had broken through barriers during the war when "Rosie the Riveter" symbolized women in the workforce.

The United States funded the Marshall Plan, one of the most ingenious examples of foreign policy in our history.

Berlin became a symbol of the Cold War that was to endure for decades.  Fear of communism reinvigorated the right wing in the United States and paved the way for the paranoid and fearful 1950's.

More to come

A SHORT HISTORY OF RIGHT WING DESTRUCTION PART 9

FDR asked for a Declaration of War against Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Congress agreed.  Then we were also at war against the other Axis powers, the Germans and Italians.

It must have been a difficult time for right-wingers.  They hated "that man" in the White House.  But the country had been attacked and there was no question we had to fight a war.  Of course, down through the years there have been several rather stupid conspiracy theories that FDR somehow allowed the attack to occur. I think it's ludicrous.  An attack by the Japanese would, in and of  itself, constitute a case for war.  We didn't have to let the Pacific fleet be disabled and leave the West Coast open for possible invasion to justify a war against Japan.  If it was a conspiracy, it has to be one of the strangest in history.

Right-wingers may not have been thrilled that the Soviet Union was a U. S. ally.  But we probably wouldn't have won the war without the pressure the Soviets put on Germany.  The war against the Soviet Union took manpower and resources that Hitler couldn't devote to other theaters of the war.  The Russians suffered immensely in World War II and took horrific losses.

FDR died mere weeks before the war ended and Harry Truman became president.

More to come

 A SHORT HISTORY OF RIGHT WING DESTRUCTION PART 8

We've all probably seen those iconic photos from the 1930's showing unemployed people lined up at soup kitchens.  We've heard about the Dust Bowl or read great novels like The Grapes of Wrath.

I'm glad that Franklin D. Roosevelt was willing to take on the job of being president and take on the monumental problems he faced.  Not everything the New Deal tried worked, but many programs did.  Thanks to FDR, we have Social Security.  Right-wingers would like to destroy Social Security and let their fat cat friends on Wall Street have access to the money.  If your investments go bad, then too bad.  No pension for you, pal.

Even as the world endured the Great Depression, what Herman Wouk termed "the winds of war" were blowing.  The world got a preview in the Spanish Civil War.  The fascists waged war against the Republic of Spain.  The fascists were backed by Nazi Germany and the Republican forces were backed by the Soviet Union.

Right-wingers in the United States were isolationists.  They didn't want involvement in what they termed a European war.  FDR saw the danger and tried to provide aid to our allies the best way he could.  The attack on  Pearl Harbor by the Japanese made U. S. involvement in the war inevitable.

More to come

 A SHORT HISTORY OF RIGHT WING DESTRUCTION PART 7

Republican Herbert Hoover followed Calvin Coolidge into the White House and inherited a booming economy.

But the stock market crashed in 1929 and set off the Great Depression.  Hoover believed in a hands off approach from government, that the markets would right themselves, and that normalcy would return.  But it didn't happen.

Historians Allan Nevins and Henry Steele Commager observe in A Pocket History of the United States:  "In the case of the 1929 panic there were factors that led, clearly enough, to the collapse.  In the first place, the productive capacity of the nation was greater than its capacity to consume.  This was largely because too large a part of national income was going to a small percentage of the population who promptly turned it back into savings or investment, and not enough of the income to the labor, farmer, and white-collar classes upon whose continued ability to buy the whole business system rested."  Disparity of wealth and income, concentration of wealth, and other similarities abound, don't they?

A SHORT HISTORY OF RIGHT WING DESTRUCTION PART 6

As the world entered the 1920's, Republican Warren G. Harding was president of the United States.

Harding's administration is well known for its scandals, particularly the Teapot Dome scandal.  He, like so many other politicians, had at least one mistress.

Harding actually did or attempted to do some good things.  Harding signed the first federal child welfare law.  He supported an eight hour day for mining and railroad workers.  He advocated for an anti-lynching bill to protect African-Americans.

Like several other presidents, Harding died in office.

Harding was succeeded by "Silent Cal" Coolidge.  Coolidge was the Ronald Reagan of his day.  He believed in a laissez-faire form of government.  The economy boomed in the 1920's, although there was still rampant inequality.  The policies of the Coolidge administration also paved the way for the Great Depression when the bubble burst in 1929.

Just as in the 1980's, the United States went from a creditor to a debtor nation.  Policies of the Coolidge administration made it almost impossible for defeated Germany to make reparations payments and that helped create the environment that brought Adolf Hitler into power and finally another world war.

More to come

A SHORT HISTORY OF RIGHT WING DESTRUCTION PART 5

The years 1900-1920 saw a hodgepodge of disasters and a few accomplishments.  The biggest event of the two decades was World War I.  It was the first true world war and got called "the war to end all wars" by some.  That proved illusory, of course.  It was only the beginning of the bloodshed that would characterize the 20th century.

Technology continued to develop and it had its good and dark sides.  For instance, the Wright Brothers built the first successful heavier-than-air aircraft.  Airplanes would later be used in World War I to inflict death and destruction.

The "Titanic," considered a marvel of ship building technology, sank on its maiden voyage.

In the United States we had the Triangle Shirtwaist fire on March 25, 1911.  The owners, like good conservatives, had locked the doors to the workplace and workers could not escape when a fire broke out.  Victims of the fire included children, who worked at the company.  We know the conservative history in decrying laws requiring workplace safety and we know that conservatives would love to allow child labor.

President Woodrow Wilson worked toward the establishment of the League of Nations, but the United States did not join the League because of opposition by Republicans in the Senate.  You wonder now if the League had included the United States and if the League had possessed any real power if World War II might have been averted.

We had the Communist Revolution in Russia.  It resulted in the deaths of Czar Nicholas II and his family and the installation of a totalitarian government that acted as a good foil for militarists in the United States for the next few decades.

More to follow

A SHORT HISTORY OF RIGHT WING DESTRUCTION PART 4

The parallels you see in history are fascinating.  At the turn of the 19th century the United States found itself involved in a war in the Philippines.  It was in many ways an early version of the Vietnam War.

The Philippines had previously been a Spanish colony.  Spain gave up control of the Philippines as part of the Treaty of Paris that ended the Spanish-American War.

The Philippine war lasted three years.  4,200 Americans died in the war and an estimated 20,000 Filipino combatants were killed.  An astonishing 200,000 civilians died as a result of the war, famine, and disease.

Just as in Vietnam a few decades later, the U. S. enjoyed a vast superiority in military technology.  The Filipinos found conventional warfare ineffective.  Just as the Viet Cong did later on, the Filipinos engaged in guerrilla warfare.  Even the topography was similar to Vietnam.

Both sides committed atrocities.  Both sides used torture.  That is also a parallel with more modern history.

Aggressive foreign policy that involves the use of the military has been a hallmark of conservative politicians.  The Philippine war was a result of the conservative McKinley administration's policies.  The policies were carried out by President Theodore Roosevelt after McKinley's assassination.

Famed writer Mark Twain was a prominent opponent of the Philippine war.  Twain wrote "A War Prayer" and blasted the hypocrisy of people who proclaim their virtue while carrying out atrocities in colonial wars.

More to come

A SHORT HISTORY OF RIGHT WING DESTRUCTION PART 3

After the Civil War ended, the United States entered a period that has been called the Gilded Age.

The Gilded Age saw technical progress and expansion of U. S. territory and influence.  It also saw the development of the some of the great fortunes that still exist today.  Men like Andrew Carnegie and J. D. Rockefeller built financial empires.  They were largely free from governmental restraint.

Things were not so pleasant for working class people.  There was no social safety net in those days except for what could be provided by churches and private charities.  It wasn't only African-Americans who suffered discrimination.  Newly-arrived immigrants from Ireland, Italy, and other countries faced discrimination.

We saw completion of great railroads, largely with federal government help.  It was the equivalent in some ways of government research that developed the Internet and other technologies in our day.

There was movement toward giving women the right to vote.  It was resisted strenuously by the reactionary forces of the time.

As the century turned, we had a war with Spain.  The war was justified because of an apparent attack on the United States battleship "Maine" in Havana Harbor.  The Fox News of the day was probably William Randolph Hearst, a practitioner of "yellow journalism."  Hearst pounded the drums for a war with Spain.  The Spanish-American war may  have been the equivalent of George W. Bush's trumped up reasons for attacking  Iraq.

More to come

A SHORT HISTORY OF RIGHT WING DESTRUCTION PART 2

After the Civil War ended, there was a transition period in which the defeated South was treated much as a defeated country would be treated.  United States troops occupied parts of the South.  There was a desire by some in the North to punish the South for the Civil War.

There was also positive movement toward giving African-Americans rights as free people.  Passage of the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution made African-Americans, in theory, equal citizens of the United States.  But the right wing backlash was already developing.

Political forces in the South were determined to subvert the Constitution whenever and wherever they could when it came to rights for African-Americans.  Extralegal groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, a group dedicated to white supremacy, were also created.  The Ku Klux Klan was committed to intimidating African-Americans and subverting the voting process.

If African-Americans couldn't be scared away from the polls, there were other devices put in place to suppress their votes such as the poll tax.  The poll tax was highly discriminatory against poor people and most African-Americans were obviously poor.  Other obstacles such as "literacy tests" were implemented to make it almost impossible for African-Americans to qualify as voters.

More to follow

A SHORT HISTORY OF RIGHT WING DESTRUCTION PART 1

When you read American history you can see an undercurrent of right wing philosophy from the beginning of the United States as a sovereign nation.

Prior to ratification of the Constitution, the law of the land was the Articles of Confederation, which epitomized the idea of "states' rights."  The federal government was weak and largely ineffectual. It was so bad it prompted political leaders to call for a constitutional convention to replace the Articles.

The members of the constitutional convention hammered out the Constitution, the document we see today.  The Constitution is a document filled with compromises and fear of a federal government that would be too strong.  We got the so-called "checks and balances" system that creates three co-equal branches of government:  the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.  Even the legislative branch is split into two houses as a form of compromise.  The House of Representatives might be considered a  democratic body because the number of members of based on the population of the individual states.  The Senate has two members from each state, regardless of population, and makes it a decidedly undemocratic body.

Even the checks and balances system didn't satisfy the conservatives of the time.  They demanded a Bill of Rights that would place even further restraints on federal government power.

Conservatives of the time got their way by making African-Americans 3/5's of a person because that increased the power of the southern slave-holding states.

Thomas Jefferson was one of the earliest and most prominent advocates of states' rights.  Jefferson was a slave-holding southerner.    The concept of states' rights is a direct assault on the idea of a strong federal government.  It says, in effect, that each state has power equal to that of the federal government.

Slavery was the hot button issue in the early days of the United States.  The southern states depended on the free labor provided by slaves to bolster their economies.  The northern states began moving toward a more manufacturing based economy, not based on slave labor.  Southerners were concerned that the federal government would move in a direction that would restrict or perhaps even eliminate slavery.  We got compromises such as the Mason-Dixon line.

Conservative doctrines such as "manifest destiny" and the "only good Indian is a dead Indian" came into play.  But the world was moving away from the use of slavery and conservatives worried that slavery would be banished.

The election of Abraham Lincoln is an interesting parallel to the election of Barack Obama.  Lincoln's election was a landmark moment. Conservatives feared that Lincoln would finally abolish slavery and that led to the firing on the United States Fort Sumter by forces of the rebel Confederacy  and the launch of the agonizing and brutal American Civil War. I think we can say the conservatives of the era were primarily responsible for the Civil War.

More to follow.

FIRE UP THE RAIL

The modern Republican party doesn't believe in governing.  It believes in obstruction, lying, smearing, demonizing its opponents, distorting history and the Constitution, and outright hypocrisy.

We now have the spectacle of a government shutdown because the Republicans don't like the health care law that was passed by a previous Congress. Never mind that the new health care law is modeled on a law one of their own, Mitt Romney, implemented while he was governor of Massachusetts.  Never mind that millions of Americans have done without health insurance.  Never mind that other industrialized nations have left the United States in the dust when it comes to providing for the basic needs of their citizens.  About the only area where the United States is Number One now is the size and scope of its military.

I think we need to fire up the proverbial rail and run Republicans out of power wherever and whenever they present themselves.  They are clearly not interested in serving the needs of the American people except for their rich friends and corporate backers.