Echoes of History Repeating Itself, "This is Cassandra calling: will you accept the charges?"

I've just been looking over some notes from books I read some while back, and they seem to have more than a little relevance to us today, one snippet in particular, from a fellow named Woodworth Clum, who tried to sound the alarm about someone who reminds me more than a little bit of our UMSL co-professor, Don Giljum; see if you can see the resemblance,

" I have some of Miss Flynn's books on my desk. Let me quote from her "Sabotage":

"I advocate sabotage. I am not going to attempt to justify sabotage on any moral ground. If the workers consider sabotage is necessary—that in itself makes sabotage moral. Its necessity is its excuse for existence.""

Doesn't that sound like something Giljum and his commie UMKC co-professor, Judy Ancel would say?
How about with this bit that our pamphlet writing friend found particularly alarming, regarding another professor, very similar to our own Ancel,

Ajax abducting Cassandra, as she'd foreseen

"" ...I want no mere puttering reforms," writes Professor Calhoun. "If the radicals will stick for ultimates and confiscation, I'll stay with them. One of the things that will hasten the revolution is to spread the notion that it can come soon."

What do you think of that—you American mothers and fathers who are sending your boys and girls to our American colleges ?
How does it impress you business men who own property ? I know your first answer.
You say that if Professor Calhoun really wrote such stuff—and really believes it—he should be expelled from the college where he is teaching.
But if you were convinced that other professors, ex-professors and college graduates, representative of leading educational institutions in America, are preaching much the same doctrine, and are members of a society that has assumed leadership in endeavoring to co-ordinate the campaign of the Russian Soviets, the I. W. W.'s, the Communists and practically all the other extreme radicals in this country, what would you do about it?"

Like most good questions, it still applies today... what would YOU do about it? I ask, because as you might have guessed, this pamphlet wasn't written recently, or even back amidst the turbulent days of the 1960's, but during 'the good ol' days' of 1920, and apparently whatever it was that our grand parents did about his warnings, it wasn't enough, was it? When this man wrote his little pamphlet in warning to his fellows of the dangers facing them, he was warning them about the dangers he feared that their grand children - that'd be us - might see realized, if they did nothing about what he so clearly saw looming up around them.

I wonder whether or not your grandchildren will even have the option of doing nothing?

What dangers? You didn't really ask that, did you?

The freedom and liberty they had in 1920, though already reduced from their parents, is almost unimaginable to us. At that time no one dared to tell you that you could be fined $90,000 fine - or $4,000,000, which ever comes last - for your children selling more than $500 dollars worth of bunny rabbits. No one in 1920 would dream of fining Girl Scouts for selling cookies in their front yards. You didn't need a permit to build a shed in your back yard, or to seek permission for painting your home. You didn't need permission, permits and authorizations to start a business, or need to have a fine knowledge of labor law to hire someone to work for you in your business, or seek government clearance for paying them a wage commensurate with the value you judged that their efforts would be worth, or permission from a damn government agency with a name right out of Atlas Shrugged of National Labor Relations Board, to build a factory in whichever state you felt was best.

Neither did they have to worry about two or three times convicted pedophiles, free to roam about looking for a bigger thrill, perhaps at the risk or your child's life. They didn't have to worry about twisted perverts being in positions of power over them and their children's education, didn't have to think about the possibility of teachers instructing their grade school children on the 'simple facts' of how to put on a condom or the ins and outs of homosexual acts. Didn't have to be concerned about their children being taught that America was a racist country or that it didn't deserve to exist.

And the idea that you would have to apply for a permit to own or carry a firearm, let alone wait for the government to approve it... would have drawn howls of fury. And probably a volley of shots.
In short, in the America of 1920, you were still an American, and didn't face the looming threat of being deemed a criminal for choosing not to purchase a government approved health insurance policy (if you don't have enough political pull, that is).

They did however, have to worry about their college age children being exposed to those ideas which would bring those very policies down upon us today, if they went unchallenged in their day... but ...because they didn't worry too much then, we do have to worry about such things, and worse, being visited upon our very much younger children today.

There's a phrase that's grown out of what Edmund Burke tried to warn his generation of, that Britain's abuse of power would bring about revolution and ruin, he said

" When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

Through the ages and degradation of language which, that phrase has come down to us altered and paraphrased into variations of,

"Evil requires nothing more than for good men to stand by and do nothing."

or was it from the even more pithy phrase from the narrator of an early movie of "War and Peace", or a mixture of each, who declares

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"

In either case, men from our past have sent us warnings, and it matters little who said what or when, but in our failing to heed the meaning of what they had to say, we bring history around for another tragic repetition, lapping us once again. Whatever the case, the truth of that phrase, or the equally apocryphal one attributed to George Washington,

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

, the truth of all of these phrases is right here with us today, just look around you to see them in action.

Our Cassandra, Woodworth Clum continued on for an amazingly brief 26 pages, still though, his warnings fell on mostly deaf ears in his time (how about in our time?),

"And now that some of the names have been identified for you,—read that Calhoun letter over again. Does it not stir something in your very soul? Am I right when I say there is a job ahead for all of us who love America?
However, that Calhoun letter is merely the introduction to this tale of pink professors, and their fellow-workers in the effort to undo America.
Among such thorough American professors who are doing a heroic work at this time are Professor T. N. Carver of the Department of Economics, Harvard University, and Professor Laurence LaiTghlin, Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. Professor Carver has written a very clear preface to Brasol's "Socialism versus Civilization" published by Seribners and which should be included in every American library. Professor Laughlin has recently published ten pamphlets, exposing not only the fallacy of socialism but also presenting some very excellent suggestions concerning present industrial difficulties.
When we say that parents of boys and girls attending school in America should ascertain what sort of economics their children are being taught, it is in the hope that support and encouragement will be given to those educators who are endeavoring to develop sound American economics,—just as much as to expose the teaching of economic fallacy."

Back then there was still some memory of economics being a sensible science, the socialists hadn't yet transformed it into the 'dismal science' one we have today. In 1920, you could still expect to exchange your bank notes, even the new Federal Reserve notes, for gold or silver - they represented real money, unlike the inflated specie of today. Back then, a twenty dollar bill, and an ounce of gold, were basically interchangeable, and both would buy you something of value, such as a good suit. Whereas today, a twenty dollar bill might buy you a tie (if you don't mind getting a cheap one)... but oddly enough, an ounce of gold can still be exchanged for something of value, such as a good suit.

Ever wonder why that is?

A good economics text, one written prior to 1920, could tell you exactly why, or reading our founders writings could tell you, and warn you, of what could cause such a thing. And a careful reading of them would enable you to see that the principle involved, inflation - retaining something of real substance, while increasing the quantity and ease of attaining materials to exchange for that same amount of substance - would apply as easily to matters of finance, as to matters of knowledge, and such inflation, whether monetary or intellectual, brings disastrous results.

What to do about it? Real, truthful, solutions rarely change... all that usually changes are the extents to which we try to avoid or confuse the issues surrounding them. Our Cassandra calls out to us again from 1920,

"THE REMEDY

We, who love America and believe in her institutions, must do a little studying. We must learn over again the full meaning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States.
We must brush up on the basic reasons for our economic system and we must talk these things with our children, so that they will understand.
Those of us who have children in the high schools and colleges must talk with them concerning the doctrines that are advocated by their teachers. We have demonstrated in America throughout a hundred and thirty years that our economic system is the greatest incentive to advancement in civilization, but we must know some of the reasons and be able to convey those reasons to others.
And we must perfect in each state and in each county organizations of right-minded Americans who are willing to devote a little of their thought and time and money to saving America from those who would bring about a social revolution.
The bomb-throwing anarchist and bullet-shooting radical will never retard America. The big job is with the pink variety,—whose poison is injected quietly and where we least suspect it.
What are you going to do about it? Or are you too busy?"

Good question and good advice, what is your answer? Are you willing to accept the charges from your grand children?

What are you going to do about it? Or are you too busy too? Lincoln put it to our grand parent's grand parents this way, that,

"...It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

Bullets and bombs are not the most dangerous threat we face - the elimination of the ideas our forefathers fought for, is. Just how much time is it that you think that "Government of the people, by the people and for the people" has left on this earth if you stand around and do nothing?