Tag: History

ARE THE VISIGOTHS AND HUNS OVERRUNNING KANSAS?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

The news coming out of Kansas is truly disturbing. Things were bad enough when historian Thomas Frank asked, What’s the Matter With Kansas? (Subtitled, “How conservatives won the heart of America.”) But now it’s looking out and out suicidal.

It’s what happens when ultra-right-wingers take over the governorship and legislature and begin dismantling the government. Make that, all signs of civilization. How bad can it get? When the legislature cuts down the judiciary?

This is tyranny running toward dictatorship. And the bold economic “plan” is piling up record debts for the state – and others who just might come to the rescue will wind up with the “tax-increase” label. Well, it’s looking hopeless unless the corporations in the state force a change in direction, as business leaders are urging. (At least they know the value of investing for a future.)

My suggestion? Go ahead, if you want, be truly conservative. Give it back to the Indians. And move to your own reservation.

TRANSPLANTED

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As I said at the time …

Did I ever mention that if you examine the headstones in many cemeteries in Montgomery County, Ohio, where I’m from, the names are identical to those in a typical Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, graveyard? Turns out half of my dad’s ancestry is Pennsylvania Dutch who continued in western Ohio from the early 1800s.

World War I, of course, obliterated any awareness of that German connection. But we weren’t alone. Not just the first wave, who arrived before the Revolutionary War in their desire for religious freedom, either. The more urban wave of the mid-1800s, with all of its high culture, also vanished from public awareness.

These are histories that need to be restored. They helped build America, urban and rural, and they were a sizable part of the population.