Browsing: Politics

A Brief History On January 20, 1920, a new organization devoted to the freedoms guaranteed to all Americans by the Constitution of the United States (and its amendments) was formed from the National Civil Liberties Bureau, an organization formed in 1917 to protect the Freedom of Speech, mainly by those Americans opposed to the US joining in World War I.  With the motto, “Because Freedom Can’t Protect Itself” the ACLU is a premier civil rights organization active all over the United States, supporting the rights of a wide variety of Americans in a wide variety of causes. Digging Deeper Among…

A Brief History On January 19, 2018, Texans celebrate Confederate Heroes Day, while in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi Robert E. Lee Day is celebrated.  In 2017 the United States was torn by protests and counter protests, notably leading to violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the subject of removing Confederate statues and monuments from public areas.  Previously, campaigns to remove Confederate flags from public places resulted in South Carolina becoming the last state to stop flying the “Stars and Bars” over its capital (2015).  Americans seem torn between honoring their ancestors and erasing every trace of what is deemed…

A Brief History On January 16, 2001, President Bill Clinton, in one of his final remaining acts as President of the United States, posthumously awarded former President Theodore Roosevelt the Medal of Honor, the highest military honor in the United States.  Roosevelt was given the award for leading a charge up San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish-American War in 1898.  Roosevelt thus became the only US president to have earned a Medal of Honor, although given the century plus between the action and the award, one must wonder if the award was given for political and publicity reasons. …

A Brief History On January 13, 1953, an article appeared in the Soviet newspaper, Pravda (which means “truth” in Russian, obviously some kind of joke…) that accused a large number of Jewish doctors in the USSR of plotting to poison top Soviet communist officials.  The government immediately cracked down on these alleged conspirators, with hundreds of doctors losing their jobs, many being arrested and jailed.  Other people of Jewish origin or bearing a Jewish sounding name were also ostracized.  This travesty of justice was known as “The Doctors’ Plot.” Digging Deeper The anti-Semitic nature of the Soviet Union is puzzling,…

A Brief History On January 12, 1971, a group of conspirators dubbed by the press as “The Harrisburg Seven” were indicted on charges that they planned to blow up the steam heating tunnels to Federal buildings in the Nation’s capital, as well as to kidnap National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger.  Shockingly, this group of alleged terrorists was led by radical Roman Catholic priest, Father Phillip Berrigan! Digging Deeper Berrigan was already in jail at the time of the alleged plot, serving a sentence of 3 years for entering a military draft office and burning draft cards with home made napalm. …