In my American history class we were asked to write what my professor called a Final Narrative explaining what we had learned in class. Below the jump is what I wrote.
What I’ve learned primarily from this course is that man is a repetitive beast. It’s rather sad that young people, including myself at that age, dismiss history as something that’s already happened and therefore unimportant to their lives. If they could be convinced otherwise perhaps we could finally stop repeating ourselves and actually fix some things.
It seems that at this point in our history we are repeating the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s. The robber barons are back and richer than ever. The distance between the rich and the poor is larger than the planet itself and unlikely to close any time soon. Our politicians are either in bed with the rich or too weak to actually stand by their convictions and stand up for the poor and others unable to stand up for themselves.
The American century has pretty much ended and the third world is on the rise. Americans, as they were in the early 19th century, are rebelling against the robber barons but voting for their friends. They’re mad as hell and they’re not going to take it any more except, of course, they are taking it and taking it and don’t see they are the fuel that keeps the whole corrupt system alive. Corporations are sending American jobs overseas and our politicians protect them. The Tea Party, which claims to be a populist movement, is actually funded by billionaires; its followers are living in a delusional world carefully erected by the likes of Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh. They refuse to see that they are pawns in a rich man’s game. During the Gilded Age we had the Rockefellers and the Carnegies; today we have the Koch brothers. Once again we repeat ourselves.
As happened in 1929, in 2008 we saw the global economy nearly collapse due to greed and speculation. We only barely evaded a second Great Depression. Unemployment numbers are still gigantic and the pain is being felt around the world. As happened after the first collapse of the stock market and the New Deal we are hearing the cries for austerity even though our economy has not yet recovered and more stimulus is needed to get the nation back on its feet.
As America did in World War I, it has once again gotten involved in conflicts halfway around the world in the name of spreading democracy. Americans are still living in the delusion of American exceptionalism and refuse to see that the American way is not necessarily the right way for people in other countries.
In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s Americans discriminated against immigrants and African-Americans. Today Americans still discriminate against immigrants and African-Americans. The only difference is the addition of Gay Americans to the list of people not to be tolerated. A historic moment happened on election day in 2008 when an African-American man was elected President of the United States. People began to actually believe that maybe America had finally begun to move beyond ignorance and hate. The rise of the Tea Party and its success proves that isn’t true.
America is on the precipice of a new era. The conservative movement is on the rise again and calling for regressive policies that would essentially wipe out the progress of the early 20th century. Protections for the elderly, the poor and children are under fire on a daily basis. It seems to be the desire of conservatives to send us back to the 1800’s as though the twentieth century had never happened. They must not succeed.
The answer lies in our young people. They must become more engaged as they did in the 1960’s in order to keep America moving forward. It is so important that they understand the importance of history and its impact on their lives. Humanity must stop repeating itself and reach to the future and the only way to do that is to know the failures and successes of the past.