Before Monty Python, South Park, and Sam Kinison, there was Bob and Ray. The comedy team became a legend in the 1950s through their radio skits. Particularly hilarious in this sampling of their routines is an interview of an American history who admits that his book is a"sloppy piece of work." It begins at about 6:54 into the audio.
The point that must not go unacknowledged is that there is no way University of Alabama- Huntsville students can feel safe on campus until professors are permitted to bring guns to faculty meetings. Apparently, David Beito agrees.Well, thank goodness somebody’s finally thinking about the children.
In reality, the question of whether professors should bring their .45s and glock nines to faculty meetings has very little bearing on student safety. But it would definitely raise the stakes for the discussion of whether to revise the Literature Before 1800 requirement of the English major.
In his amusing post, Bérubé has a single sentence (emphasis mine) opining that this question has"very little bearing on student [or faculty/staff?] safety." Perhaps he could elaborate.
How does he suggest we improve campus safety? If, for example, he believes in"gun free zones," what measures would he propose to better enforce them? Should universities install more metal detectors? Should they redouble the size of their campus security forces? We'd all like to know.
To move along the discussion, I'll elaborate on my views. I believe that Alabama's concealed carry law should trump the current"gun free zones" at government universities and colleges. As a believer in liberty and property rights, however, I oppose imposition of a"one best system" on private institutions. They should be free to set their own standards, mistaken or otherwise.
To cast this man as a populist, you needn't merely imagine an alternate America where a William Jennings Bryan, the explosive orator who ran unsuccessfully three times for the White House in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, has actually captured the presidency. You need to imagine a Bryan who went to Harvard and taught at an elite law school, who received more money than his opponent from Wall Street and the corporate media, who personally intervened during the presidential campaign to help a bank bailout become law, who surrounded himself with advisers drawn from Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and whose solution to an economic crisis has been to propose a program of corporate subsidies. A populist? Even at his most liberal, pushing a plan to move the country toward universal health coverage, Mr. Obama's idea of advancing reform is to cut deals with all the industries involved so they'll back his legislation.
Don’t try to drive a pickup truck. Leave that for the Scott Browns of the world. But you might want to play a little more basketball in, say, Indiana. That’s the “real America,” too, especially during March Madness. There is a serious point to be made: nobody has an exclusive claim to “the real America.”
This audio of an entire America First Committee rally from June 1941 is a real treat. The sound quality is crisp and clear:
The all-star line-up includes John T. Flynn (about 4:30 into the audio), probably the most important activist in the “Old Right” during the 1940s and the 1950s.
Speaking after Flynn is John Cudahy, a former ambassador to Ireland, Belgium, and Poland and a Democrat. To enthusiastic applause, Cudahy not only condemns Roosevelt's foreign policy but calls for reestablishment of the gold standard!
My old friend and associate at the Institute for Humane Studies, John E. Moser, has written the first full-length biography of Flynn: Right Turn: John T. Flynn And The Transformation Of American Liberalism
In 2003, Historians Against the War (HAW) seemed a promising opportunity to bring together antiwar historians of all political persuasions. And, in fact, many libertarian historians joined with liberals, socialists and others on the left to oppose the war. Such an ecumenical political organization had rarely appeared in American history since the demise of the American Anti-Imperialist League in the early twentieth century. Because of its openness, HAW received praise from such free market blogs as the Beacon of the Independent Institute, Antiwar.com, Scott Horton's The Stress Blog, LewRockwell.com Blog, and Liberty and Power at the History News Network.
Seven years later, however, HAW has become essentially a left-wing social club with virtually no political effectiveness. The shift to the new HAW began in March when the leadership purged from the Hawblog yours truly and Thaddeus Russell, a historian of the left who has libertarian sympathies and is critical of the moral universalism and imperialism of the progressive tradition. The major complaints against us were that we were devoting too much space to pushing a"libertarian agenda" (others did not hesitate to blog on progressive proposals that had nothing to do with foreign policy),"bashing Obama" and his foreign policy, and criticizing the HAW leadership for its silence on the new administration.
The blog purge was only a prelude. Soon after it took place, HAW scuttled its generally welcoming and ecumenical original statement of purpose in favor of a leftist critique of"global capitalism" that seemed almost calculated to spurn potential libertarian or conservative recruits.
The latest example is this advertisement for an upcoming HAW panel. It takes for granted that HAW members and"progressive historians" are one and the same. It shows no effort to include libertarian and conservative anti-war historians, left historians critical of"progressivism," or even to acknowledge the existence of non-progressives.
Worse yet, as Thad Russell pointed out, HAW's use of this label in this way also identifies the organization with the most aggressive imperialists in American history including the two main founders of American progressivism, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. The advertisement asks "what can progressive historians & historically minded activists do to positively influence political events?" The implication, of course, is that libertarian and conservative anti-war historians are not qualified to"do” anything about Obama’s Wars. They are to be ignored.
Thad Russell comments:
How about a panel discussion on that?
I would also like to note that, via the HAW blog, David Beito and I raised the issue of Obama's warmaking and the HAW's silence on it from the first days of the administration but were banned from the blog for doing so. Please see our posts on the blog archive, beginning here.
And do let us know whether you agree with the steering committee's decision to ban us from the blog.
In solidarity against the wars,
Thad Russell
www.thaddeusrussell.com As a member since the earliest days of the organization (I signed on shortly after the Iraq invasion), I ask -- and am on the verge of very publicly demanding -- that the HAW steering committee clarify whether the organization is limited to"progressive" historians (as the AHA flyer as well as many other statements made by the steering committee strongly suggest) or just historians who are AGAINST THE WARS. If the former, I will resign immediately since I refuse to identify myself with Wilson, the Roosevelts, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and the"progressive" tradition that is responsible for the largest imperialist wars in U.S. history.
Also, Damon Root, at Reason, has has this to say about my most recent book (co-authored by Linda Royster Beito):
But my vote for the year’s best book goes to David and Linda Beito’s landmark biography Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard’s Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power. Howard was a wealthy doctor, entrepreneur, and mutual aid leader who championed civil rights, capitalism, and armed self-defense amidst the lawlessness and state-sanctioned violence of Jim Crow Mississippi. As Black Maverick convincingly shows, no history of the civil rights movement is complete until it acknowledges Howard’s indispensable contributions.
Kozak concludes that “In the weeks following the Malmedy massacre, U.S. troops clearly broke the rules of the Geneva Conventions. Justified or not, they were technically guilty of war crimes.”
Hat Tip, William Stepp.
Fast forward to December 2009, when I gave a talk at the Progressive Forum in Houston Texas. ... The next day another popular blog concluded that I deserved capital punishment. Web chatter on this topic, including indignation that I was coming to Texas, led to a police escort.How did we devolve to this state? Any useful lessons?
Hansen has legitimate reason to be upset. Nobody deserves capital punishment for expressing an opinion. Let's turn to Hansen's more general question, however. What"useful lessons" can we draw from this incident? We need look no further than Hansen's own past comments. According to an article in the Guardian from 2008:
James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.
Or, as Brad at WendyMcElroy.com puts it"as ye sow, so shall ye reap." Brad also notes:
Mind you, the"high crime" isn't producing CO2, it is"spreading doubt." Hell of an attitude for a so-called scientist.
The producer and writer was Norman Corwin (an ardent New Dealer who is still going strong at age 99). It featured an all-star cast including Orson Welles, James Stewart, Walter Brennan, and Edward G. Robinson, and closed with a speech by Roosevelt.
Broadcast only a week after Pearl Harbor, it still holds the ratings record for any dramatic show. About half the American population tuned in. The actors, especially Stewart and Welles, give a hyper exuberant commentatory on each amendment.
Despite Corwin’s leftist political beliefs, the content (with a few exceptions) does not reveal a pro-New Deal slant. The section on the second amendment (32.35 minutes into the program) seems downright libertarian. It interprets the amendment as not only protecting gun ownership by individuals but also their right to use these weapons to overthrow an oppressive government.
A little birdie told me that qualified applicants will have an especially good chance this year.
For more information, see here.
“Perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars.....One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by forty three other countries — including Norway — in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.”
“Still, we are at war and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill. Some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict.
“All the Asiatic nations are now faced with the urgent necessity of adjusting themselves to the present age. Japan should be their natural leader in that process, and their protector during the transition stage, much as the United States assumed the leadership of the American continent many years ago, and by means of the Monroe Doctrine, preserved the Latin American nations from European interference. The future policy of Japan towards Asiatic countries should be similar to that of the United States towards their neighbors on the American continent.”
Hat tip, William Stepp.
