America 1909 wasn't really that long ago

"Those who fail to remember the lessons of history yadda yadda yadda ..."
-- GEORGE COSTANZA on SANTAYANA

To be fair, I'm not sure this particular quote ever appeared on "Seinfeld." It's just that I figure you all know it, so rather than insult you by making a big deal out of it, I decided to have a little fun with it.

I'm not sure we have forgotten the lessons of history. I just think we don't think they matter anymore.

It wasn't even 30 years ago that President Reagan said these words: "The defense policy of the United States is based on a simple premise: The United States does not start fights. We will never be an aggressor."

"Yes, but .... didn't 9/11 change everything?"

Most scientists now believe than man has been on this planet for somewhere in the neighborhood of two million years. That's 2 with six zeroes. In the overall scheme of things, do you know how little change takes place in say, a century?

Look back a hundred years and you see a country very different from the one we occupy today. In 1909, roughly 40 percent of Americans were farmers, fishermen, forestry workers, miners and other outdoor types.

They occupied a country in which white men didn't take any guff from anyone. Women couldn't vote except in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. California would follow suit in 1911, but it would be 1920 before all American women could vote. Black people knew their place, and if they didn't, there were lynchings and other atrocities to remind them.


In 1915, the most popular movie ever made, "Birth of a Nation," had members of the Ku Klux Klan as its heroes. Ten years later, more than 400,000 Klansmen in full regalia held a march through the streets of Washington, D.C.

But we've changed, haven't we?

No one gets lynched anymore, at least not that we hear about. We don't even need affirmative action, do we? Gosh, even Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter say we live in a post-racial society.

Hey, we elected a black man president.

That we did, and it was a wonderful thing.

But do you ever really surf the Internet? Do you visit some of the right-wing Websites and see some of the vile things people have been saying about Barack Obama? Have you heard about the classified ad that got sneaked into the newspaper in Warren, Pa., the other day?

"May President Obama follow in the footsteps of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy."

I suppose the fact that the employee who took the ad didn't make the connection is another one of those "lessons of history" things.

I wish racism were gone from our society, but I'm afraid it has only gotten smarter and more subtle. Limbaugh can call the mayor of New Orleans "Mayor Nay-ger" and then just say he made a mistake. "Urban" can become a code word for black, just as Richard Nixon used "law and order" as code words in his Southern Strategy.

Yes, we're a better country now than we were in 1909, 1915 or 1925.

But let's not kid ourselves that we're past racism. The men marching in those hoods in 1925 were our grandfathers and our great-grandfathers. Maybe not mine, maybe not yours, but they were somebody's ancestors.

I'm not saying we need to keep apologizing or atone for anything. I'm just saying that when it comes to discriminating or speaking ill of people, we ought to remember one rule when we think of doing something.

Would your mother be proud of you if she knew?

That sure would eliminate a lot of bad behavior.