I  hope you find the time to read this with an open  mind. It's  interesting.  
  
  Take  the three minutes to read this.
Maybe  he is wrong.
What  if he is right?  (I THINK HE IS!)
  
    
    
    
    
    
    
  David  Kaiser is a respected historian whose published  works have covered a broad range of topics, from  European Warfare to American League Baseball.  Born in 1947, the son of a diplomat, Kaiser  spent his childhood in three capital cities:   Washington D.C. , Albany , New York , and Dakar  , Senegal .. He attended Harvard University ,  graduating there in 1969 with a B.A. in history.  He then spent several years more at Harvard,  gaining a PhD in history, which he obtained in  1976. He served in the Army Reserve from 1970 to  1976.

He is a professor in the Strategy  and Policy Department of the United States Naval   War College.  He has  previously taught at Carnegie Mellon, Williams   College and Harvard University . Kaiser's latest  book, The Road to Dallas, about the  Kennedy assassination, was just published by   Harvard University Press.


Dr. David  Kaiser


History  Unfolding

I am a student of history.  Professionally, I have written 15 books on  history that have been published in six  languages, and I have studied history all my  life. I have come to think there is something  monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe  it is simply a banking crisis, or a mortgage  crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but  they are merely single facets on a very large  gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper  focus.

Something of historic proportions  is happening. I can sense it because I know how  it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how  people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be  brewing, but there is something happening within  our country that has been evolving for about ten  to fifteen years. The pace has dramatically  quickened in the past two.

We  demand and then codify into law the requirement  that our banks make massive loans to people we  know they can never pay back?  Why?

We learned just days ago that  the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real  oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion  dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the  past few months, but will not tell us to whom or  why or disclose the terms. That is our money.  Yours and mine. And that is three times the $700  billion we all argued about so strenuously just  this past September. Who has this money? Why do  they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to  us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I  thought this was a government of "we the  people," who loaned our powers to our elected  leaders. Apparently not.

We  have spent two or more decades intentionally  de-industrializing our economy..  Why?

We  have intentionally dumbed down our schools,  ignored our history, and no longer teach our  founding documents, why we are exceptional, and  why we are worth preserving. Students by and  large cannot write, think critically, read, or  articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers  are not picketing, school boards continue to  back mediocrity. Why?

We have now  established the precedent of protesting every  close election (violently in California over a  proposition that is so controversial that it  simply wants marriage to remain defined as  between one man and one woman. Did you ever  think such a thing possible just a decade ago?)  We have corrupted our sacred political process  by allowing unelected judges to write laws that  radically change our way of life, and then  mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others  to turn our voting system into a banana  republic. To what purpose?

Now our  mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices  are in free fall, major industries are failing,  our banking system is on the verge of collapse,  social security is nearly bankrupt, as is  Medicare and our entire government. Our  education system is worse than a joke (I teach  college and I know precisely what I am talking  about) - the list is staggering in its length,  breadth, and depth.. It is potentially 1929 x   ten...And  we are at war with an enemy we cannot even name  for fear of offending people of the same  religion, who, in turn, cannot wait to slit the  throats of your children if they have the  opportunity to do so.

And finally,  we have elected a man that no one really knows  anything about, who has never run so much as a  Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla  , Alaska .. All of his associations and  alliances are with real radicals in their chosen  fields of employment, and everything we learn  about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not  downright scary (Surely  you have heard him speak about his idea to  create and fund a mandatory civilian defense  force stronger than our military for use inside  our borders? No? Oh, of course. The  media would never play that for you over and  over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin's  pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe are more  important.)

Mr.  Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to  one word: Change. Why?

I have never been  so afraid for my country and for my children as  I am now.

This man campaigned on  bringing people together, something he has  never, ever done in his professional life. In my  assessment, Obama will divide us along  philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try  to realign the pieces into a new and different  power structure. Change  is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will  never see the same nation  again.

And that is only the  beginning..

As  a serious student of history, I thought I would  never come to experience what the ordinary,  moral German must have felt in the mid-1930s In  those times, the "savior" was a former  smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets,  about whom the average German knew next to  nothing. What they should have  known was that he was associated with groups  that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people  with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto  the political stage through great oratory.  Conservative "losers" read it right  now.

And there were the promises.  Economic times were tough, people were losing  jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled  and frowned and waved a lot. And people, even  newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear  that his "brown shirts" would bully and beat  them into submission. Which they did -  regularly. And then, he was duly elected to  office, while a full-throttled economic crisis  bloomed at hand - the Great Depression. Slowly,  but surely he seized the controls of government  power, person by person, department by  department, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The  children of German citizens were at first,  encouraged to join a Youth Movement in his name  where they were taught exactly what to think.  Later, they were required to do so. No Jews of  course,  

How  did he get people on his side? He did it by  promising jobs to the jobless, money to the  money-less, and rewards for the  military-industrial complex. He did it by  indoctrinating the children, advocating gun  control, health care for all, better wages,  better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride  once again in the country, across Europe , and  across the world. He did it with a compliant  media - did you know that? And he did this all  in the name of justice and .... . .. change. And  the people surely got what they voted  for.

If you think I am  exaggerating, look it up. It's all there in the  history books.

So read your history  books. Many people of conscience objected in  1933 and were shouted down, called names,  laughed at, and ridiculed. When Winston  Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late  1930s while seated in the House of Lords in   England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was  booed into his seat and called a crazy  troublemaker. He was right, though. And the  world came to regret that he was not listened  to.

Do not forget  that Germany was the most educated, the most  cultured country in Europe . It was full of  music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories,  and universities. And yet, in less than  six years (a shorter time span than  just two terms of the U. S. presidency) it was  rounding up its own citizens, killing others,  abrogating its laws, turning children against  parents, and neighbors against neighbors.. All  with the best of intentions, of course. The road  to Hell is paved with them.

As a  practical thinker, one not overly prone to  emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can  either believe what the objective pieces of  evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe  with disgust); I can believe what history is  shouting to me from across the chasm of seven  decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my  eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is  transpiring around me..

I choose to  believe the evidence. No doubt some people will  scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am  foolish, naive, or both. To some degree, perhaps  I am. But I have never been afraid to look  people in the eye and tell them exactly what I  believe-and why I believe  it.

I  pray I am wrong. I do not think I am. Perhaps  the only hope is our vote in the next  elections.

David Kaiser     
Jamestown , Rhode Island
United  States