Doomed to Repeat It

Here I go again. Clearly I am not very good at keeping up with things. And shame on me, with so many interesting and horrifying things going on!

Today I am in the middle of a new history class, which covers world events from the Great War up to the present. Currently we are studying the Cold War, which means we've done both World Wars and the Great Depression, decolonization, and United States involvement in South America. I've also started reading Winston Churchill's history of World War Two.

Tonight at 6pm Eastern Time I watched the BBC World News broadcast like I do almost every weeknight, and was horrified. Because of the modern history I'm learning now, I've started to see patterns and similarities in current events. For example, foremost in the report was the state of the American economy and its effects on the British home market. The BBC compared the credit, housing, and fuel crises to the Great Depression; and they aren't the only ones. Practically every article regarding the economy nowadays makes some reference to the 1930s and the terrible state of economics during that time, in the States and across the world. Many say that this is fearmongering, but clearly these people have not read Churchill. In the second chapter of The Gathering Storm he addresses the causes of the Depression and its effects on pre-Nazi Germany. Regarding the cause, he writes,

"The whole wealth so swiftly gathered in the paper values of previous years vanished. The prosperity of millions of American homes had grown upon a gigantic structure of inflated credit, now suddenly proved phantom. Apart from nationwide speculation in shares which even the most famous banks had encouraged by easy loans, a vast system of purchase by installment of houses, furniture, cars, and numberless kinds of household conveniences and indulgences had grown up. All now fell together."

Sound familiar?

And then there's this Russia issue. Today Condoleezza Rice signed an agreement with the Czech government, authorizing the States to base a missile defense shield there. Russia is a tad miffed, to put it lightly, at the concept of American arms so close to its borders, and has threatened military retaliation. The BBC reported that

The Russian foreign ministry statement said: "If a US strategic anti-missile shield starts to be deployed near our borders, we will be forced to react not in a diplomatic fashion but with military-technical means."

Rice responded that the system was designed to protect Europe and the States from Iranian nukes, and that the Cold War was over.

Is it?

So now I'm thinking, huh. Isn't that just great. Haven't we done this before? But in the '40s, the economy was reinvigorated by war manufacturing, whereas today there can be no such boost. Manufacturing is mechanized, meaning that there will be no influx of factory jobs. The companies themselves are privatized, limiting any benefit to the country as a whole by sale of arms to the government. And of course there won't be any competition because the friends of the administration get no-bid contracts. All the rest of us would be needed for is tax money and coffin fodder. That's assuming another large(r) war breaks out at all, and of course, it was a war that partially got us into this mess to start with.

I'm hoping fervently that Obama can win the election and rein in the worst of what's quickly becoming complete ruin.