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Liz Michael for United
States Senate
Society
in every state is a blessing, but government even
in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its
worst state an intolerable one for when we
suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries *by a
government*, which we might expect in a country
*without government*, our calamities is
heightened by reflecting that we furnish the
means by which we suffer."
Thomas Paine |
Reagan's
War: The Epic Story of His Forty Year Struggle and Final
Triumph Over Communism
by Peter Schweizer
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The Cold War rhetoric of the subtitle is
completely apropos to this hagiography, which gives the
Gipper full credit for bringing down the Soviet Union.
Schweizer is a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution
and coauthor, with Caspar Weinberger (Reagan's secretary
of defense) of The Next War. Using Reagan's own files and
papers, and other newly released material, Schweizer
demonstrates Reagan's development as a critic and
determined opponent of communism and of the Stalinist
Soviet Union. Schweizer depicts Reagan, from the
beginning, regarding tactics and realpolitik as more
important than ideas; in the process, the author does not
carefully distinguish (as Reagan and most others of the
era did not) Stalinism and what came after from communism
as an ideal. Reflection, study and conviction led Reagan
to the belief that steady pressure systematically applied
would eventually bring down a Soviet Union whose
legitimacy rested ultimately on force. He remained
committed to this vision as his status rose in a
Republican Party itself increasingly committed to a
detente that Reagan argued both weakened the West and
prolonged the survival of its rival power. Schweizer
takes pains to establish the widespread belief in the
West by 1980 that the balance of economic, military, and
political forces had irrevocably shifted in favor of the
U.S.S.R. On assuming the presidency, Reagan brought about
a huge change in U.S. policy, abandoning defensive
counterpunching and actively prosecuting a Cold War the
U.S.S.R. had never ceased to wage. Schweizer argues that
Reagan spent as much time convincing his own lieutenants
to abandon the defensive as he did confronting the
Russians. It's a story that is clearly and stirringly
told, but without seriously entertaining dissenting views
on its iconic subject.
Nothing
is so permanent as a temporary government
program.
Milton
Friedma |
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|
The Great Thanksgiving Hoax
by Richard J.
Marbury
Each year at this time school children all over America
are taught the
official Thanksgiving story, and newspapers, radio, TV,
and magazines
devote vast amounts of time and space to it. It is all
very colorful
and fascinating.
It is also very deceiving. This official story is nothing
like what
really happened. It is a fairy tale, a whitewashed and
sanitized
collection of half-truths which divert attention away
from
Thanksgiving's real meaning.
The official story has the pilgrims boarding the
Mayflower, coming to
America and establishing the Plymouth colony in the
winter of 1620-21.
This first winter is hard, and half the colonists die.
But the
survivors are hard working and tenacious, and they learn
new farming
techniques from the Indians. The harvest of 1621 is
bountiful. The
Pilgrims hold a celebration, and give thanks to God. They
are grateful
for the wonderful new abundant land He has given them.
The official story then has the Pilgrims living more or
less happily
ever after, each year repeating the first Thanksgiving.
Other early
colonies also have hard times at first, but they soon
prosper and
adopt the annual tradition of giving thanks for this
prosperous new
land called America.
The problem with this official story is that the harvest
of 1621 was
not bountiful, nor were the colonists hardworking or
tenacious. 1621
was a famine year and many of the colonists were lazy
thieves.
In his `History of Plymouth Plantation,' the governor of
the colony,
William Bradford, reported that the colonists went hungry
for years,
because they refused to work in the fields. They
preferred instead to
steal food. He says the colony was riddled with
"corruption," and with
"confusion and discontent." The crops were
small because "much was
stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce
eatable."
In the harvest feasts of 1621 and 1622, "all had
their hungry bellies
filled," but only briefly. The prevailing condition
during those years
was not the abundance the official story claims, it was
famine and
death. The first "Thanksgiving" was not so much
a celebration as it
was the last meal of condemned men.
But in subsequent years something changes. The harvest of
1623 was
different. Suddenly, "instead of famine now God gave
them plenty,"
Bradford wrote, "and the face of things was changed,
to the rejoicing
of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God."
Thereafter, he
wrote, "any general want or famine hath not been
amongst them since to
this day." In fact, in 1624, so much food was
produced that the
colonists were able to begin exporting corn.
What happened?
After the poor harvest of 1622, writes Bradford,
"they began to think
how they might raise as much corn as they could, and
obtain a better
crop." They began to question their form of economic
organization.
This had required that "all profits & benefits
that are got by trade,
working, fishing, or any other means" were to be
placed in the common
stock of the colony, and that, "all such persons as
are of this
colony, are to have their meat, drink, apparel, and all
provisions out
of the common stock." A person was to put into the
common stock all he
could, and take out only what he needed.
This "from each according to his ability, to each
according to his
need" was an early form of socialism, and it is why
the Pilgrims were
starving. Bradford writes that "young men that are
most able and fit
for labor and service" complained about being forced
to "spend their
time and strength to work for other men's wives and
children." Also,
"the strong, or man of parts, had no more in
division of victuals and
clothes, than he that was weak." So the young and
strong refused to
work and the total amount of food produced was never
adequate.
To rectify this situation, in 1623 Bradford abolished
socialism. He
gave each household a parcel of land and told them they
could keep
what they produced, or trade it away as they saw fit. In
other words,
he replaced socialism with a free market, and that was
the end of
famines.
Many early groups of colonists set up socialist states,
all with the
same terrible results. At Jamestown, established in 1607,
out of every
shipload of settlers that arrived, less than half would
survive their
first twelve months in America. Most of the work was
being done by
only one-fifth of the men, the other four-fifths choosing
to be
parasites. In the winter of 1609-10, called "The
Starving Time," the
population fell from five-hundred to sixty.
Then the Jamestown colony was converted to a free market,
and the
results were every bit as dramatic as those at Plymouth.
In 1614,
Colony Secretary Ralph Hamor wrote that after the switch
there was
"plenty of food, which every man by his own industry
may easily and
doth procure." He said that when the socialist
system had prevailed,
"we reaped not so much corn from the labors of
thirty men as three men
have done for themselves now."
Before these free markets were established, the colonists
had nothing
for which to be thankful. They were in the same situation
as
Ethiopians are today, and for the same reasons. But after
free markets
were established, the resulting abundance was so dramatic
that the
annual Thanksgiving celebrations became common throughout
the
colonies, and in 1863, Thanksgiving became a national
holiday.
Thus the real reason for Thanksgiving, deleted from the
official
story, is: Socialism does not work; the one and only
source of
abundance is free markets, and we thank God we live in a
country where
we can have them.
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