Learning From History

One of my majors was Russian and Soviet Studies.  I went into it mostly for the language, but it made a lot of sense to learn about our existential enemy--it seemed to be immortal and would provide a lot of job security.  Shame that the place disintegrated a few months after I received my degree.

Oops, was that siding with the Russkis?  Of course not.  I took an entire class just on nuclear war, in which few people are in favor.  To study is not to necessarily to support.

But of course, conservatives prefer to dumb things down, and I see that somebody out there is agitating to remove Elena Kagan from the Supreme Court in part because she wrote a "telling and disturbing" thesis about how she loves socialism.

It's actually quite an interesting paper, with a very timely conclusion:

The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism's decline, still wish to change America. Radicals have often succumbed to the devastating bane of sectarianism; it is easier, after all, to fight one's fellows than it is to battle an entrenched and powerful...In unity lies their only hope.

Hardly a lament for the socialist party in America, but wise words for anybody who wants to effect change.  That includes the fracturing Tea Party.  Sometimes it helps to learn a little history...

ntodd

* Show a little "yuhyoohappy" during the NTodd Ain't Ann Romney Fundraiser *