Sunday, August 15, 2010

25 Days Until Daddy

Happy Sunday! We love Sunday's because we get to go to Church and learn about Jesus and see all of our friends. Since Matt is gone Abby needed to come to choir with me and a really sweet girl volunteered to watch her. I could tell that Abby realizes that things aren't normal--such as Matt being gone by the way she reacted. She cried and cried and she is always so good with anyone that wants to play with her. I also think she was tired and so she fell asleep for a little while in her arms. I think next week she is going to play with another couple and they will bring her to Church. That will make her very happy--especially because she can play with their dog Marcus! Here is a picture of our Tempe Ward Building with our friends Carric and Jenny in front.
I had the opportunity today to play a duet with my friend Carly Aylworth. She played "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" on the oboe and I played the piano. How blessed I am to make music with Carly! I also was asked to play the part of Mary Magdalene in Primary. I pretended to be her and told the kids about my experience seeing Jesus at the garden tomb. It actually ended up being a really moving experience as I contemplated just what she saw and what a miracle it was. One little girl just sat there starring at me with her mouth open. I love kids!

My friend Natalie sewed me a beautiful circle skirt and gave me a shirt to go with it. Everyone at Church absolutely loved it and I received many compliments. The picture doesn't really show it since I had to set the timer and take the picture. But you get the idea!
Our friends have been so amazing and supportive. Tonight we went to our friends Ben, Stacy, Lucy and Alice for dinner and fun. Abby loves to run and play and their house is the perfect place to do that. We really enjoyed our time with them.

Beck on President Coolidge

So I was invited to watch the Glenn Beck show today. It was the episode on Coolidge that I already mentioned, but now I have a much more complete picture of the episode. Its primary function was to argue that Coolidge was a godsend and solved the terrible situation that Wilson created. He did so by using conservative policies of lowering taxes for the wealthy and minimizing government. Beck says that during Coolidge's administration there were three times as many cars in the USA and per capital wealth increased. “People made more money” and “real income went up.” There was little inflation and “it was a golden time.” Electricity lit up homes and appliances came into the home. Beck said this led to “euphoria” and leisure time. To help make this argument Beck brought in two “historians”: Amity Shlaes and David Pietrusza.

Where do I begin? First, let me say that some of this is correct. I admit it. Good work. Coolidge’s minimalist government program did increase production and growing supply lowered prices of goods so that for the first time in US history the middling classes could afford to buy all sorts of “stuff.”

However, Beck and his two buddies who are parading as historians conveniently overlook the advances during Wilson’s administration and thrust all positive economic gains onto Coolidge. They seem to forget that the unionization that occurred under Wilson’s administration created, for the first time, a working class that was finally paid enough to buy “stuff,” and this new consumerism is what drove the economic boom of the 1920s. During Wilson’s administration the government closely managed production and streamlined production to mobilize the economy for World War I. Wilson established unprecedented partnerships between the government, private industry, and labor groups to maximize communication and production. He suspended anti-trust lawsuits and minimized labor protests. He guaranteed profits to businesses but also base wages to workers. This sort of management really focused all the energies of the American economy for the war. After the war all bets were off, wages dropped, prices rose, and conflict between labor and business resumed. This all occurred at the close of Wilson’s presidency, at which point he was incapacitated by a stroke and unable to respond. It is hard to blame him for the economic recession that ensued, given his incapacitated status. We can never know what would have happened if he had his facilities, but what we do know is his efforts during the war created unprecedented economic stability and social equality.

So the economic boom of the 1920s can be traced to the growth of a consumer class (thank you Wilson) and the consequent growth of production (thank you Wilson and Coolidge). Of course, the expansion of credit during those years also led a major problem—the Great Depression (you can blame Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover). Certainly we should not overlook Coolidge, but let’s not go crediting him with all the good Wilson did or omit the economic instability that his policies set in motion. This is yet another example of why you should not get your history lessons from political talk shows, and definitely not from Glenn Beck.

On a related note, I take offense at the title of “historian” that Beck gave to his two guests. Amity Shlaes is a journalist. She only has a bachelor’s degree and I believe it is in English. It is possible that she has never taken a history class beyond the required survey class as a freshman in college. She is not a historian. David Pietrusza has both a BA and a masters degree in history, which makes him qualified to teach high school but still not a historian. Both have published several books but none by a scholarly press (a common standard of quality among true historians). Instead, they are published privately or perhaps by conservative think tanks who are more interested in advocating a political message be thrust on the past than a genuine study of the past. These two are not historians!

Misrepresenting the Facts, Again.

So I mentioned in a previous post that I am briefly staying with my parents and that while I appreciate the room the bombardment of Fox News’ revisionist history is torture. Let me first state that I’m not a Democrat or Republican; I’m an independent and I vote for both sides depending on the issue. Nevertheless, the utterly false refashioning of history by conservatives drives me crazy, not because of my political affiliation, but because of my profession (recalling I am a history professor). Let me share the latest example.

This morning I was subjected to a conveniently incomplete paraphrasing of a quote from Senator Harry Reid (Democrat). The paraphrase stated that Reid said that Republicans were on the wrong side of the health care bill, just like they were on the issue of slavery. Then the conservative issuing the paraphrase went on to say that Reid is an idiot because he does not seem to know that Republicans fought slavery and Democrats supported it.

Let’s look at the actual quote to see if the paraphrasing accurately reflects Reid’s comments:

"Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all Republicans have come up with is this slow down, stop everything, let's start over. You think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right. When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said, slow down, it's too early. Let's wait. Things aren't bad enough. When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted slow down, there will be a better day to do that. The day isn't quite right. When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today. . . . History is repeating itself before our eyes. There are now those who don't think it is the right time to reform health care. If not now, when, madam president? But the reality for many that feel that way, it will never, never be a good time to reform health care."

In the actual quote Reid says that Republicans want to slow down change, and then he goes into the history lesson, stating that historically people have resisted change on issues like slavery and women’s suffrage. In the history lesson he refers to people who “dug in their heels and said , slow down, its too early.” He does not identify them as Republicans. Then he goes back to the modern day for analysis when he states, “History is repeating itself” because once again senators are resorting to filibuster threats and other means to slow down change, specifically the health care bill.

So what do we learn? Well, the conservative who issued the paraphrasing took some liberties in order to create a straw man he could knock down. Reid never said Republicans opposed all those things, just that there has always been people who opposed change, and he is right. And though Reid did not say they were Republicans, he would have been partially right to do so because those conservative elements resisting change have flip-flopped between parties depending on which would support their policy of resisting change. Who are these people that have been resisting change since the early nineteenth century? Southerners. They once called themselves Democrats (1820s-1940s), then Republicans (1950s-1960s) , then began switching back and forth depending on which party appealed to their attitude of resisting change (largely voted Democrat in the 1970s, Republican in the 1980s, Democrat in the 1990s, and Republican since 2000). Regardless of party affiliation, it is Southerners who have historically resisted change. That is okay—it is an acceptable and reasonable position—but let’s be sure we know who we are talking about. Not Republicans, not Democrats—just Southerners. They have historically resisted change, and are doing so again as members of the Republican party today.

So was Reid correct? Yes, there is a group who historically resist change and they are now resisting change as members of the Republican party. What did conservative media do with his comments? They misrepresented the quote and then challenged the historical accuracy and Reid’s credibility. The funny thing is that in their efforts to challenge his understanding of history they revealed that they do not actually understand history. So what is the moral of the story? Don’t get your history lessons from Political “news” talk shows and web sites. They don’t know history, but are happy to re-write it to defame their opposition and support their own political ideas.

On a side note, less you think I’m really a liberal because I continue to reveal the blunderings of Fox News and conservative media, let me simply explain that I am not subjected to liberal media like MSNBC so I cannot speak to their false assumptions. I am, however, forced to listen to conservative mistakes all day long.