I just read an article in the Chicago Tribune about the right wing authoritarian groups in Europe which are much like the Fascists of the 1930’s and 1940s. Some are outright Neo-Nazis. Many of the moderates and left leaning leaders and groups wonder if those people have forgotten or somehow missed their school history classes because Europe pushes that period hard so it will never happen again – they hope.

                Europe’s grade and high school history courses go into greater depth but the perspectives were often influenced by whether the school was in Eastern or Western Europe. The schools
controlled by the Soviet Union put a heroic Right Wing stance on history. Italy is still under the influences of Benito Mussolini and his followers which emphasis how great his policies were. Sound familiar?

             When I was taking high school history in the early 1960s it was mainly Early American up to the signing the Constitution without any of the political disputes involved in the result. Everything was great people, great actions, and great results. Everything was through rose-colored glasses. My nine college history courses after high school still didn’t get down into the causes of wars, policies, and leaderships.

               Today we have millions of people who can’t see history is repeating itself. Many countries are democracies in name only. These “democracies” are led by authoritarians or what are really dictators like Vladimir Putin of Russia and Jashodaben Modi of India. We must be aware of our leader’s personality to put our country and its people first and not themselves. We have two people vying to be President in November. One cares about the people and the other cares only about the perception of how great he is. The choice should be easy in America.