Hey Bill ... parallels between today and what Burns and company relate are many. (Committees of Correspondence aka social media for one). This to me is a lesson about guardrails not retribution. Ice is Trump's private army , mostly schlumps playing war at our expense. As in Saddam's army, we must neutralize them not politicize them. Let'em sit around for a year without assignments and then slowly disband them. Maga is simply a foil for exasperated citizens and twisted entertainers (Kirk, Fuentes, Carlson). Conversation, discovery, and targeted solutions are what we need. Mamdani's win is relevant because his conversation with voters was relevant. Check out David Leonhardt's conversation with Ro Khanna in today's NYT; not the part about Epstein, but the part about hollowed out cities in the midwest. I think Biden actually got a lot right. He sucked at the correspondence part.
Thanks for all your efforts in amplifying the conversation. A veritable Samuel Adams of our time.
Abraham made a mistake when he decided to fight secession. " A country divided against it self cannot stand" yet that it what we have and always have had. Southern "ideals" (Slavery, oligarchy) have spread like a cancer. Now they basically control the country. A.L. should have let them go.
I have often thought "what if we had let the south go...?"
Slavery would have ended eventually. Its not like we really made life terrific for African Americans in the South. We could have had a working relationship as with Mexico and Canada. Southerners could have sorted out their economy over time, as thousands of slaves escaped north.
All that lost DNA. All that resentment and hate that lingers to this day.
Great piece Bill. Thanks for the recommendation and for the history lesson. Too many of us have never read the Declaration or the Constitution (including, I suspect, some of our elected officials) and none of us review them often enough.
The revolution is being televised, just a couple of hundred years after the fact. And maybe a little before the encore.
Thank you, Bill, for sharing the truths about the Founding of our Nation. These white, land-owning MEN were deeply flawed, that is true. But aren't we all at least a little flawed? Including me and thee. But like our Founding Fathers we can strive for a better world in 2013 and 2021 we flawed greatly, but the vast majority of us seem finally to have woken up and smelled the dying roses. Things can and will be better. Just keep up the good fight.
Lots of good stuff here, Bill!
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905.
We need to support authoritative historians to remind us and contextualize the parallels with the present.
Hey Bill ... parallels between today and what Burns and company relate are many. (Committees of Correspondence aka social media for one). This to me is a lesson about guardrails not retribution. Ice is Trump's private army , mostly schlumps playing war at our expense. As in Saddam's army, we must neutralize them not politicize them. Let'em sit around for a year without assignments and then slowly disband them. Maga is simply a foil for exasperated citizens and twisted entertainers (Kirk, Fuentes, Carlson). Conversation, discovery, and targeted solutions are what we need. Mamdani's win is relevant because his conversation with voters was relevant. Check out David Leonhardt's conversation with Ro Khanna in today's NYT; not the part about Epstein, but the part about hollowed out cities in the midwest. I think Biden actually got a lot right. He sucked at the correspondence part.
Thanks for all your efforts in amplifying the conversation. A veritable Samuel Adams of our time.
Thanks for the smart observations and kind words. Good to hear from you!
Outstanding writing and information Bill. Thank you.
Abraham made a mistake when he decided to fight secession. " A country divided against it self cannot stand" yet that it what we have and always have had. Southern "ideals" (Slavery, oligarchy) have spread like a cancer. Now they basically control the country. A.L. should have let them go.
I have often thought "what if we had let the south go...?"
Slavery would have ended eventually. Its not like we really made life terrific for African Americans in the South. We could have had a working relationship as with Mexico and Canada. Southerners could have sorted out their economy over time, as thousands of slaves escaped north.
All that lost DNA. All that resentment and hate that lingers to this day.
NO! Let's pass bills where we the people can stand strong against them. Thank you for the PBS recommendation. I'm all in!
Great piece Bill. Thanks for the recommendation and for the history lesson. Too many of us have never read the Declaration or the Constitution (including, I suspect, some of our elected officials) and none of us review them often enough.
The revolution is being televised, just a couple of hundred years after the fact. And maybe a little before the encore.
Thank you, Bill, for sharing the truths about the Founding of our Nation. These white, land-owning MEN were deeply flawed, that is true. But aren't we all at least a little flawed? Including me and thee. But like our Founding Fathers we can strive for a better world in 2013 and 2021 we flawed greatly, but the vast majority of us seem finally to have woken up and smelled the dying roses. Things can and will be better. Just keep up the good fight.