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How to Think About Corporate Personhood

by James Livingston

In Zuccotti Park on October 5, 2011, I saw a young woman holding a scrawled cardboard sign that read: “I’ll believe corporations are persons when Texas executes one.” It made me literally laugh out loud, so I took a picture of it. Six weeks later, November 17, on the night of the second big Occupy march to and from Foley Square, you could see those words everywhere you looked, now neatly stenciled and mass produced, a sign of the times.

Why Conservatives Never Cry Voter Fraud Against One of Their Own

by Timothy Stanley

Rick Santorum is turning out to be one of the Republican Party’s great coulda-shoulda-beens. He was denied the Iowa caucus—and all its precious momentum—by bad math. On January 4, Mitt Romney was declared the winner by just 8 votes. Over the next two weeks, rumors trickled out of Iowa of ballots being miscounted and entire precincts disappearing off the electoral map. On January 19, local GOP officials adjusted the results and pronounced Santorum the winner, by 34 votes.

Iran Through the Looking Glass

by Tom Engelhardt

Exclusive: New Iranian Commando Team Operating Near U.S.(Tehran, FNA) The Fars News Agency has confirmed with the Republican Guard’s North American Operations Command that a new elite Iranian commando team is operating in the U.S.-Mexican border region. The primary day-to-day mission of the team, known as the Joint Special Operations Gulf of Mexico Task Force, or JSOG-MTF, is to mentor Mexican military units in the border areas in their war with the deadly drug cartels.  The task force provides “highly trained personnel that excel in uncertain environments,” Maj. Amir Arastoo, a spokesman for Republican Guard special operations forces in North America, tells Fars, and “seeks to confront irregular threats...” The unit began its existence in mid-2009 -- around the time that Washington rejected the Iranian leadership’s wish for a new diplomatic dialogue. But whatever the task force does about the United States -- or might do in the future -- is a sensitive subject with the Republican Guard.  “It would be inappropriate to discuss operational plans regarding any particular nation,” Arastoo says about the U.S.

What Happened to the Statesman?

by Frank Uekoetter

Looking back on 2011 from the safe distance of February 2012, it seems that there are two things that one can safely state about last year: first, that it was a year full of epochal events, and second, that we have no idea about what they will mean in the longer term. From the Arab world to the eurozone, we see completely undecided states of affairs: established structures have been challenged or swept away, but the new is still evolving. Even more, it is difficult to imagine certainty about the new structures any time soon. 2011 may have been the overture for a decade of instability.

Calling Herr Madison: The EU Needs to Take a Page from the Founding Fathers

by David O. Stewart

As European leaders met in Brussels last week to address the long-running European debt crisis, their host city illustrated their problems: unions protesting crisis-related austerity measures staged a general strike.   The never-ending debt crisis poses the question whether Europe can move toward greater political integration. Since the 1950s, the European Union has nurtured that region's recovery from two world wars. Today's half-way integration, however, is not enough. Only greater coordinated action can implement the solutions needed, as evident from the striking parallels between today’s Europe and America in the 1780s: crushing debt, currency confusion, sectional jealousies, and a lack of political will. 

Mitt's Verbal Gaffes Shows That When It Comes to Politics, He's Not His Father's Son

by Ian C. Friedman

Mitt Romney’s father, George Romney, lived an extraordinary American life. Born in Mexico in 1907—the grandson of a Mormon who fled the anti-polygamy laws in the United States during the 1880s—he spent a humble childhood in Texas, Idaho, and Utah before improbably rising to become the successful CEO of an automobile company.Romney then turned his attention to politics, winning the governorship as a Republican in the traditionally Democratic state of Michigan three consecutive times. He was a frontrunner for the 1968 GOP presidential nomination when he uttered a quote explaining his opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam War that famously undid his fledgling campaign. But placing this quote in context redeems George Romney and contrasting his words those of his son is illuminating. And the light it casts is not kind to the son.

No Place Like Home—Interview with Historian Susan J. Matt on Homesickness in American History

by Robin Lindley

Our national mythology celebrates the exploits of swashbuckling adventurers and pioneers and explorers and immigrants who cut their ties to their homes and their past, traveled widely, and never looked back. Americans today see themselves as a dynamic and mobile people and often dismiss the sense of homesickness as juvenile and unrefined.But cultural historian Susan J. Matt presents a contrasting view of our past in her groundbreaking study of the profound sorrow and longing for home felt by the uprooted in America from colonial Jamestown to the present-day world of email and Skype in her new book Homesickness: An American History (Oxford). As Dr. Matt recounts, today’s marginalized condition of homesickness was once considered a fatal disease. She learned, for example, that the Union Army reported that 74 troops died of homesickness during the Civil War and thousands more were granted leave to go home and recover from severe symptoms. 

A Titanic Hero Made by History: Interview with Author and Commentator Chris Matthews on the Elusive John F. Kennedy

by Robin Lindley

Almost anyone who is a baby boomer or older has a vivid memory of where they were when they heard that President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas on November 22, 1963. And many remember the slain young leader as an almost mythical character: witty, handsome, idealistic, energetic, inclusive. But the reality of John F. Kennedy was much more complex and much more intriguing.Just a few days after the assassination, on November 29, his widow Jacqueline Kennedy told journalist Theodore White: “History made him, this lonely, sick boy.. His mother never loved him. History made Jack, this little boy reading history.”

Has Mitt Romney's Mormonism Influenced His Views on Islam?

by Timothy R. Furnish

Mitt Romney’s conservative credentials have been questioned on more than one occasion, probably best exemplified last fall when Rush Limbaugh decreed that the former Massachusetts governor was “not a conservative” because of that state’s “Romneycare” program and his apparent acceptance of the anthropogenic global warming thesis. But the most troubling Romney shortcoming in this regard is his seeming acquiescence to the “Islam is a peaceful religion” worldview. Andy McCarthy did broach this topic last summer, but little has been said about it since, either in print or in the legion of GOP debates—where Wolf Blitzer, John King, George Stephanopolous and Brian Williams are rather obsessed with alleged threats to abortion “rights,” the GOP candidates’ ranking within the “1%” and, most importantly, Newt’s bitter ex-wives.

Afghanistan: The Argument for Continuing America’s Longest War

by Brian Glyn Williams

In the fall of 2006 I was quietly contacted by the CIA and asked if I would travel to Afghanistan and track Taliban and Al Qaeda suicide bombers for their Counter Terrorism Center. A year later I was asked to write up a field manual for the U.S. Army’s Joint Information Operations Warfare Command (I have published a civilian version of it which came out in January 2012 with University of Pennsylvania Press). I believe I was chosen because I am perhaps the only historian in America who has been regularly going to Afghanistan to carry out fieldwork. My on-the-ground experiences, combined with my efforts to historicize the on-going conflict and place it in its historical context, have given me a unique perspective on this controversial war that currently costs the U.S. $100 billion a year and scores of soldiers’ lives. What follows here is a layman’s historical overview of the on-going war which will serve as an explanation for why it is crucial for America to remain engaged in this Central Asian country.

Rediscovering the History Uncertainty Principle

by Gil Troy

Tenure is intended to give academics freedom to question, to experiment, to risk. But this freedom to fail often becomes a license to go stale. Too many scholars stick to their usual methods, forgetting to question assumptions, take fresh looks, to think boldly. We should continue stoking our original curiosity, refined by experience over time.Three years ago, Dr. Andrew Gyory of Facts on File asked me to update and revise the classic History of American Presidential Elections, originally edited by the legendary historians Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and Fred Israel. Flattered, I agreed. He had no idea how significant that collection was to me, nor did I realize how complicated the project would be. I ended up taking an intellectual journey that challenged a central assumption most modern American historians share: that the information we work with is accurate.

How A Crackpot Theory of Education Reform Became National Policy

by Mark Naison

Future historians are likely to tell the following story: some time during the early twenty-first century, a cross-section of the American elite began to panic. They looked at the growing chasm between the rich and poor, the huge size of the nation’s prison population, and the growing racial and socieconomic gulf in education, and decided something dramatic had to be done to remedy these problems.But instead of critically examining how these trends reflected twenty years of regressive taxation, a futile “war on drugs,” the deregulation of the financial industry, the breaking of unions and the movement of American companies abroad, America’s leaders decided the primary source of economic inequality could be found in failing schools, bad teachers, and powerful teachers unions.

Memo from Red-State America: We're Not Stupid!

by Robert Wuthnow

If Newt Gingrich were to win the 2012 Republican nomination for president, historians would argue that January 19 was the turning point. That was the evening when CNN’s John King asked him to comment on stories about his marital infidelities. Gingrich shot back, “I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that.” The audience roared with applause, chanting “Newt, Newt, Newt.” Two days later, Gingrich won the South Carolina primary by a wide margin.Why did the audience respond so explosively? Is it just that people in red states hate the “liberal media” that much?Maybe. But why?Kansas history provides some interesting clues. Kansas has voted Republican over a longer period and by wider margins than any other state. If Gingrich were to deliver a similar retort in Kansas, I suspect the response would be the same.

No, Newt, the U.S. Cannot Make the Moon a State. That's Illegal Under International Law.

by Daniel S. Margolies

Leaving aside the technological challenges, fiscal unreality, and sheer oddity of Newt Gingrich’s proposal to build a “permanent base on the moon” by the end of his theoretical second term, historians might wonder: would such an American moon base or colony even be legal to construct under international law? Is Gingrich’s call for “putting a marker down” on the moon merely futuristic neo-colonialism or would such an act demand novel extralegal approaches to the projection of American power?  

A History Lesson for Newt Gingrich: Andrew Jackson was a Savage Indian Killer

by William Loren Katz

"It's not that I'm a good debater. It's that I articulate the deepest-felt values of the American people," announced the victorious Newt Gingrich in South Carolina. Republican voters [only two percent were African Americans] saw his tough, angry, racial language as straight talking. He eagerly strummed racial themes—black urban pupils ought to serve as assistant janitors to learn what is really needed in school, which is how to stick to a job and make and spend money. He then suggested the urban poor need to get jobs and learn decent work habits rather than accept handouts from the “greatest food stamp president.”

A Brief History Of Debt

by Louis Hyman

If you listen to our grandparents, in the old days nobody ever borrowed. Angelic models of virtue, they bought only what they could afford. The Great Depression had instilled values in them that these young people today just do not have. On some level, older Americans consider all this borrowing to be a moral failure without precedent.

What I Told the Hedge Fund Managers in Miami

by James Livingston

[My] op-ed in the New York Times (October 25th) led to many radio interviews, and then the book came out. The response has been astonishing. Absolute silence from the Left, and curiosity from elsewhere. The extreme Right has hammered the thing as communist propaganda, of course, but the business press has been more or less respectful, notwithstanding the twit who reviewed my book alongside James Roberts in the Wall Street Journal. Did I tell you he and I “debated” the issues on Minnesota Public Radio? Never mind. It was like arguing with a clergyman about the Bible—surely you know money is the root of all evil, and, oh my god, you ought not spend more money than you got?—so that, when the radio host asked if there were some “middle ground” where me and Mr. Roberts could meet and make nice, I said no.

Former Gingrich Ally Claims Republican Leaders Blackmailed Him Over Affair

by David Austin Walsh

Gingrich and his now wife, Callista Bisek. Credit: Gage SkidmoreA former ally of Newt Gingrich contends that the Republican Revolution in the 1990s was derailed when the Speaker was blackmailed by opponents of reform in his own party who had learned of his affair with Callista Bisek, now his wife.  Scot Faulkner, the first Chief Administrative Officer of the House of Representatives, alleges in an article that will be published on the website of the History News Network next week, that Gingrich abandoned reform to keep his affair secret.  In the article Faulkner singles out Louisiana congressman Bob Livingston, who at the time was chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, as one of the people guilty of blackmailing Gingrich.In his 2008 memoir, Naked Emperors: The Failure of the Republican Revolution, Faulkner also implicated Californian Bill Thomas, the chairman of the House Committee on Administration under Gingrich.

How Newt Gingrich's GOP Rivals Blackmailed Him Back in the '90s

by Scot Faulkner

The centerpiece of Newt Gingrich’s claim for the GOP nomination is that “we balanced the budget during the four years I was Speaker.” This is a true crowd pleaser in an era when both the White House and Congress have sailed America over a fiscal cliff.The truth is very different from Gingrich’s account and accounting.Fiscal Year 1995 began on October 1, 1994, prior to the Republican landside in November.  Federal outlays were approximately $1.5 trillion against approximately $1.4 trillion in revenue, for a deficit of $164 billion.Fiscal Year 1999 began on October 1, 1998, the last few months of Gingrich’s Speakership. Federal outlays were $1.7 trillion against $1.8 trillion in revenue. For more information, visit OMB’s historical tables.

Did Teddy Roosevelt Write Obama's State of the Union Address?

by HNN Staff

Below is an excerpt from Teddy Roosevelt's 1906 annual message to Congress -- what we now refer to as the State of the Union Address.  Was President Obama this week channelling Roosevelt?  Roosevelt here combines an appeal to patriotism with a proposal to levy steeper taxes on the rich--just as Obama did Tuesday night.  He also comes out foursquare for education--just as Obama did. Where they parted was on the question of the central government's role in ediucation.  Sounding a bit like a modern Tea Party supporter, TR believed that under our federal system education was a function that perforce had to be left up to the states and localities.