A Review of American Nations by Colin Woodward by Larry Kerschner         Have you ever asked yourself why in the world did people make the political and social decisions that they do?  A remarkable book, American Nations, subtitled “a history of the eleven rival regional cultures of North America” by Colin Woodard lends answers to many of the political questions of today. Woodard shows that it is necessary to understand the history of each region and each region’s interactions with the other regions before beginning to understand why the United States is as it is today.       In his introduction Woodard states, “America’s most essential and abiding divisions are not between red states and blue states, conservatives and liberals, capital…

A Plan for Lasting Peace by John M Repp A book review of Shift: The Beginning of War, the Ending of War (2014) by Judith L. Hand “None of us realized how much more powerful is instinct compared to intelligence. We would do well to bear this in mind or the tragic errors of the past may be repeated.”                                                                         Albert Einstein, Heinz Norden, and  Bertrand Russell                                                                         Einstein on Peace, p. 26 (1988) (p. 71 in Hand ) In the last few years, there have been many books published that argue for the abolition of war. Examples include War No More: The Case for Abolition (2013) by David Swanson, a peace activist, and The End of War (2012) by…

Letter to the editor of The Chronical By Larry Kershner The Obama administration has committed to a $65 million 13 year propaganda program to adjust US thinking about what the Vietnamese call the American War.  Observing the 50th anniversary of this war, President Obama stated, “we pay tribute to the more than 3 million men and women who left their families to serve bravely….fighting heroically to protect the ideals we hold dearly as Americans”. We might ask what ideals he is referring to.  Almost 60,000 Americans died while killing 4,000,000 Vietnamese.  Most of those we killed were civilians living in the South Vietnam we supposedly were there to protect.    The book “Kill Anything that Moves” by journalist and historian Nick…

The Experiment at Robber’s Cave: Are Humans Contentious or Cooperative? by john M Repp Robber’s Cave is the name of a State Park in Oklahoma where Muzafer Sherif conducted a very famous social science experiment in 1954. Sherif, a social psychologist, brought twenty-two fifth grade boys to a camp and divided them into two groups, the Rattlers and the Eagles. Each group stayed in a separate cabin for a week and was kept apart. Then the Rattlers and the Eagles were pitted against each other in competitive games and skits. Before long the boys started hurling insults at each other like “fatso,” “sissy,” “baby,” and “communist.” Then they began to raid each other’s cabins carrying sticks, bats and rocks in…

Preventing Infant Deaths: What Can We Learn From Cuba? by Mary Anne Mercer, first published in Huffington Post, March 6, 2015 On a recent trip to Cuba I determined to find out how that country manages to have an infant mortality rate well below that of the U.S., with dramatically fewer resources than we have. It defies logic, but in spite of its poverty Cuba demonstrates remarkably good health outcomes, particularly for infants. The most recent estimates show the Cuban infant mortality rate (IMR) to be 4.7 per thousand infants born alive, on par with much wealthier countries like Canada and New Zealand. That rate is significantly lower than the current U.S. rate of 6.2, much lower than the average IMR of…

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American Barbarism by Larry Kerschner Earlier this year news reports presented the burning alive of a Jordanian pilot and the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians as the work of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).  These are clearly monstrous acts carried out by religious and political fanatics.  However, I was struck by the morally self-righteous tone of many of the newscasts. Unstated was the idea that these are acts so evil that we Americans could never commit them. Once again, Americans either don’t know or won’t acknowledge our history.   American history is replete with similar instances of barbarity. African Americans have been raped, lynched and burned to death throughout the history of this country. Nearly 4,000 African Americans…