KNOW YOUR HISTORY OR YOUR BOUND TO REPEAT IT!
Get flash to fully experience Pearltrees
There may be nothing more gratifying and unifying for people than coming together in disdain for a past idea, now universally agreed on to be stupid. One of the greatest of these in American history is alcohol prohibition, not merely the impetus for the criminal events of Boardwalk Empire, but the case study for the idea that the best way to encourage a personal vice is to forbid it. So for fans of Boardwalk (though its viewership was down from its season 1 premiere) or students of American history, Ken Burns’ Prohibition , airing three nights on PBS starting Sunday, provides a detailed, engaging postmortem of a very, very bad idea.
TV Weekend: The Bootleg Empire of Ken Burns’ Prohibition - Tuned In - TIME.com
FBI tracked King's every move
(CNN) -- FBI wiretaps have "given us the most powerful and persuasive source of all for seeing how utterly selfless Martin Luther King was," as a civil rights leader, according to a leading civil rights scholar. The FBI's interest in the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. intensified after the March on Washington in 1963. "You see him being intensely self-critical. King really and truly believed that he was there to be of service to others.
Resetting the American Narrative
Exclusive: The U.S. political climate might change if Americans understood how much the federal government did to create the infrastructure behind many business fortunes, including the Internet and computer technology. That narrative would justify higher taxes on the rich to repay the nation and allow for future R&D, writes Robert Parry. By Robert Parry
History & Politics
Do Fox Pundits Even Know What Iran-Contra Was?
In their frenzy to take down Attorney General Eric Holder, right wing media pundits have started comparing the brewing Fast and Furious scandal , in which a failed ATF operation allowed guns to "walk" to Mexico in order to track their delivery into the hands of drug cartels, to Ronald Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s. Naturally, the conservatives making this comparison believe Fast and Furious is much worse than Reagan's scandal, in which the Republican hero trafficked arms into the hands of a tyrannical Iranian government, negotiated with Hezbollah terrorists and funneled money and military equipment into the hands of violent revolutionaries in America's own backyard.
After World War 2, Americans began to be very afraid that hordes of communists were trying to take over the country. Communism was derided, and the American public called communists "˜reds'.
The Red Scare: Mccarthyism
Farrell writes: "In the past 40 years Republican ideology has gone from solid principles to hype and slogans.
Reagan Insider: 'GOP Destroyed US Economy'
AMY GOODMAN : "Vivir en Paz," "Live in Peace," by Víctor Jara, the Chilean singer-songwriter tortured and executed during the Chilean coup of Salvador Allende, September 11th, 1973. This is Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! Mobile
The Beatles Refused to Play for Segregated Audiences, Contract Shows
A contract up for auction next week shows that The Beatles refused to play in front of segregated audiences.
The life of Charles Dickens: Beloved bully
By Robert Douglas-Fairhurst. Buy from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk By Claire Tomalin Buy from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk
The College Republicans
This post is in partnership with Worldcrunch , a new global-news site that translates stories of note in foreign languages into English. The article below was originally published in Die Welt .
Does Germany Owe Greece $95 Billion from World War II?
Red Scare Vs. Salem Witch Trials During the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 and the Red Scare of the 1950s, communities under a lot of stress hosted formal... How to Compare the Salem Witch Trials with the Crucible Red Scare Vs.
How to Compare the Salem Witch Trials to the Red Scare
September/October 2011 Heart of Dunkelheit