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OVERVIEW Commentaries


 OVERVIEW COMMENTARIES

Commentaries accompany and amplify timelines by giving more information about the specific subject related to an event. For example, the date in which the Pentagon Papers were “leaked” or published is in the timeline. A commentary giving more background and a link to further on-line information is provided so that the reader can get even more information if they wish.

          Commentaries are sourced from a popular book, journal or magazine or from an on-line reference.  Sometimes, they are excerpts from the source material  in order to give the reader a “feeling” for what life was like in that era.

          A “Source” page accompanies each timeline and lists the publication, page number and/or online link.

          Here are some examples of Commentaries included which go beyond a simple description but give the reader a feeling-based sense of the era.

1860 - 1865
1857 – New York City, Frederick Douglass Corrects the Record Regarding the Constitution and Slavery. "’We, the people’" – not we, the white people – not we, the citizens, or the legal voters – not we, the privilege class, and excluding all other classes, but we, the people; not we the horses and cattle, but we, the people – the men and women, the human inhabitants of the United States, do ordain and establish this Constitution, etc.”[1] “Constitutionality and Slavery, Frederick Douglas Sets The Record Straight,” From “Dred Scott Decision”, Lapham Quarterly

1861 – The American People Call For Prayer and Thanksgiving –ABRAHAM LINCOLN: In the 1840’s – Sarah Hale (Editor of Godey’s Lady Book magazine) – through the power of her spirit and her pen – organized some 29 states and territories to unite in a common Thanksgiving celebration.  From as far away as Dallas, Texas in 1861 – came reports that people were taking up Sarah Hale’s dream of uniting all faiths in prayer.”

1862 - Imagine A New Recruit In The Civil War – At Gettysburg - Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, “The Civil War soldier was, without a doubt, the best trained and equipped soldier yet seen on the face of the earth. Then came the day of combat, the day for which he had been drilled and marched for so long.” What happened stunned the Generals.

1862 – Battle Of Gettysburg. Lt. Col Dave Grossman -  27,574 MUSKETS RECOVERED FROM THE BATTLEFIELD. Ninety percent (24,000) were loaded. 12,000 were loaded more than once. 6,000 had three to ten loads. One was loaded twenty three times. Grossman tells why.

1865 - 1885
1870s - Commercial Food Processing - “The next 30 years, until 1900, saw perhaps the worst malnutrition England had ever known. Deficiency diseases became widespread in the country as well. It took decades to understand the connection to the processing of food.”

1886 - 1907
1887 – Rev. Henry Ward Beecher Obituary By Sinclair LewisWhen the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) was sued on a charge of adultery with the wife of his friend Theodore Tilton, the America of 1871 was ecstatically shocked.”

Schooling In The 1890s – Ursula K, Leguin – “To look at school books from 1892 or 1910 can be scary; the level of literacy and general cultural knowledge expected of a 10-year-old was rather awesome. Such texts, and lists of the novels kids were expected to read a nice girl to the 1960s, leads one to believe that Americans really wanted their children not only to be able to read, but to do it, and not to fall asleep during it.”

1908 - 1928
1920s – Walter Lipmann Writing During WWI – We are not used to a complicated civilization, we don't know how to behave when personal contact and eternal authority have disappeared.”

1920s – Gene Autrey “THE COWBOY CODE” – “Autrey’s radio program reached millions and implanted the American code of conduct called “fair play.” This is the kind of thing Aristotle would have suggested to young Athenian “cowboys” with his admonition, to “Be Good, Do Good.”

1924 - Thomas Midgley, Jr. – The Scientist Who Gave Us “SILENT SPRING” And  GLOBAL WARMING – Environmental historian J. R. McNeill opined that Midgley "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history",[19] and Bill Bryson remarked that Midgley possessed "an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny".[20]


1925 – “William Jennings Bryant: An Obituary”  by H.L. Mencken – (As only Menken could.) “It has been marked by historians that the late William Jennings Bryan’s last secular act on this earth was to catch flies? A curious detail and not without sardonic overtones.”

1929 - 1946
1946 – Ernie Pyle, David L. Brooks, The Road To Character  – “The knowledge of victory was charged with sorrow and doubt as with joy and gratitude.”

1947 - 1963
1950 - “What Was It Like?”, Ursula K. Leguin My friend at NARAL asked me to tell you what it was like before Roe V Wade. They asked me to tell you what it was like to be 20 and pregnant in 1950….”

1951 –  W.E.B DuBois - “A great silence has fallen on the real soul of this nation.” -  “W.E.B DuBois was handcuffed, fingerprinted and searched for concealed weapons was brought to trial for not registering as a ‘subversive’”.

1951 – “ONE LONELY NIGHT”, by Mickey Spillaine - Mickey Spillane’s One Lonely Night sold 3 million copies in 1951. In it the hero Mike Hammer Says: ‘I killed more people tonight than I have fingers on my hand. I shot them in cold blood and enjoyed every minute of it... they were Commies, Lee.’

1954 – Top Secret Report to President Eisenhower by General Doolittle On War With the Soviets “We must develop effective espionage and counter-espionage services and must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated means than those used against us.”

1962 - “The Obligation To Endure”, from SILENT SPRING by Rachel Carson – How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death even to their own kind?”

1963 – “Eulogy For The Young Victims Of The 16TH Street Baptist Church Bombing”, Martin Luther King, Jr.  Indeed this tragic event may cause the white South to come to terms with its conscience. (Yeah)


1964 - 1984
1970s – FUNDAMENTALISM:  The Major Trend of Religious Right Activists – “Making History Right Again”, Anti-Defamation League, The New Right was sparked by young conservative strategists dissatisfied with the array of issues that engaged activist Christians.”


1971 – The Pentagon Papers“Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the report  was initially charged with conspiracy, espionage, and theft of government property, but the charges were later dismissed after prosecutors investigating the Watergate scandal discovered that the staff members in the Nixon White House had ordered the so-called White House Plumbers to engage in unlawful efforts to discredit Ellsberg.[5]

1971 – The State Of Texas is #1 – Molly Ivins – The state of Texas is Number One among the 50 states in oil production. It is Number One in gas production, Number One in cattle, and Number One in cotton. … In 1969, we were Number One in infectious syphilis, but have since fallen to a mere fourteenth.”

1975 – The Redesign of The Military As Business“Robert McNamara reacted to the fall of Vietnam and the loss of the war like any excellent businessman, he saw that war needed a re-design if war itself. Arms production has become the leading export business for ‘irregular wars’ which pop up around the world.”
1975 – PTSD And Vietnam, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, “Thus, the long-term legacy of the Vietnam War upon American society is not just hundreds of thousands of troubled veterans, it is also hundreds of thousands of troubled marriages impacting women, children and future generations.”

1980s Ron and NancyRon and Nancy. Let's face it, they were the 80s. Okay, so his mind is mired somewhere in the dawn of social Darwinism and she is a brittle, shallow woman obsessed with appearances, but then, it was that kind of decade, wasn't it?”

1984 – Bophal India, Geographical Reality,  The CEO of Union Carbide flew in to (Bophal) to sympathize. He was arrested. He was horrified that the profession of manager could be confused with that of ethical responsibilities for the actions of the corporation.”

1984 – Iran – Contra, CIA Crack Cocaine Smuggling - The Reagan administration hired staff to publicize the emergence of crack cocaine in 1985 as part of a strategic effort to build public and legislative for the war (on drugs). The media campaign was an extraordinary success. Almost overnight, the media was saturated with images of black “crack whores,” “crack dealers,” and “crack babies” - images that seemed to confirm the worst negative racial stereotypes about impoverished inner-city residents. The media bonanza surrounding the “new demon drug” helped catapult the War on Drugs to an actual war.
Disinformation CampaignsThe word disinformation did not appear in English dictionaries until the late-1980s.[1][2] English use increased in 1986, after revelations that the Reagan Administration engaged in disinformation against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.[9] By 1990 it was pervasive in U.S. politics;[10] and by 2001 referred generally to lying and propaganda.[11][12]
1985 - 2004
1985 – CIA Cocaine Smuggling –  “Most people assume the War on Drugs was launched in response to the crisis caused by crack cocaine in inner-city neighborhoods. This view holds that the racial disparities in drug convictions and sentences, as well as the rapid explosion of the prison population, reflect nothing more than the government’s zealous – but  benign – efforts to address rampant drug crime in poor, minority neighborhoods. This view, while understandable given the sensational media coverage in the 1980s and 1990s is simply wrong…”

1985 – “Our enemies are internal” “…drugs, guns, the widening gap between poor and elite, and lots more competition for jobs.” A student from Nashville quoted by Gail Sheehey

1985 – Vatican Skeptical of American Media Handling Of Sex Abuse Scandal“…they do think the reporting on it is uniquely American, fueled by anti-Catholicism and shyster lawyers hustling to tap the deep pockets of the church.”

1987 – Jules Pfeiffer (b. 1929), “Truth Hurts “A description of one of Pfeiffer’s ‘everyman’ cartoons by Molly Ivins.”

1990 – Context Clues, Angela Y. Davis What kind of society is this which creates this hall of horrors where jail is allowed to turn to freedom and freedom into jail? This is one of the many contradictions that you will have to examine.”

1992 – “The Battle For The Soul Of Our Country” – Pat Buchanan - “I am not here to talk surrender terms, but to talk about how to fight and win the war for the soul of our country.” [Multiculturalism is] “…an across the board assault on our Angle-American heritage!”

1992 – Restore American Greatness Through Moral Strength – Pat RobertsonRepublican Convention Speech – “The campaign before us is not just a campaign for an office, but for the destiny of America.”

1993 Media Sensationalism Driven By Profit Motive  More colorfully, Nancy E. Bernhard of Harvard Divinity School put it this way in 1993: “With or without the reporter’s intent, such coverage reinforces mainstream norms about religious and social behavior and creates the impression that all nontraditional or exotic belief is lecherous, moronic or illegal.” 

1994 – The Republican “Contract With America” – Newt Gingrich – Eight reforms and 10 bills -  “During the crafting of the Contract, proposals were limited to "60% issues", i.e. legislation that polling showed garnered 60% support of the American people, intending for the Contract to avoid promises on controversial and divisive matters like abortion and school prayer.[1][3]

1995 – Religious Freedom Under Attack – French Parliamentary Commission On Cults and Sects releases a report naming hundreds of religious groups as purported “dangerous cults.” The list was generated by former members and anti-cult groups. The list was used for raids by SWAT teams, harassment and created a public atmosphere of intolerance.”

1995 – The Cult Of Violence, Vigilantes and Vengeance – Lt. Col. Dave Grossman – [After the Oklahoma City Bombing] “ if we look into the mirror provided by the television screen, the reflection we see is one of the nation regressing from a society of law into a society of violence, vigilantes, and vengeance."


2000 – Business Magazine Covers “The New Media Redefinition Of Heroism” – David L. Brooks“[Business executives] are photographed [on magazine covers] looking like mellowing rock stars, wearing expensive collarless linen shirts or multicolored sweaters and rag-wool socks under funky expensive sandals.”



[1] From “The Dred Scott Decision". Douglas, who had escaped to freedom in 1838, delivered this address to the American Abolition Society; four years later came the first shots of the Civil War. LAMPHAM QUARTERLY, Volume XI, Number 2, Spring 2018 “Rule Of Law”, pages 44 – 48

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