Where Do We Go from Here?    

   With Obama-friendly people preparing to take over our government January 20 - and we don't know yet which way the U.S. Senate will swing - what can we learn from world history? 

   Somehow we misplaced part of our source article, so we don't know who interviewed who. Nevertheless, let's look for similarities with today. 

   Liberal figures in France, Mexico, Russia and Iran long ago led revolutions. They underestimated rage on the far left, and the ruthlessness of extremists, who killed or exiled them. 

   Liberal, idealistic Lenin was followed by even more deadly Stalin, and the Soviets slid into corruption and loss of political energy. Liberalism is very promising. Then extremists take over and provide solutions the people don't want. 

   Rather than abandoning their ideals, they create terrorist states. In Iran that's still going on. Societies become more corrupt and everything falls apart. 

   France in the 18th century had resources. But the conservative aristocracy loved its privileges, and when the public heard and believed "fake news," government collapsed.     

   Meanwhile, in Russia, the czar and friends rejected reforms. World War I exposed their incompetence and failure to reform; the system failed. 

   The same for the Shah of Iran, and in Nazi Germany, where conservatives so feared leftist (communist) reform, they turned to an extreme "savior." 

   Here, both conservatives and liberals underestimate the revolutionaries. 

   Our downfall: Once free, we did nothing about slavery, partly because many founders were slave owners, and because the South would not have joined the Union (remaining loyal to England). The Civil War officially ended slavery, but not discrimination.

Tomorrow: Personalities and Revolutions

      Jimmy