Issue 1

David Steinfeld
Undergraduate/Psychology

Little Albert was terrified when John B. Watson banged the drums over his head while presenting him with a white rat, leading to a drastic overgeneralization that left Albert anxious of anything that was of white color. If Albert only had been capable of distinguishing between white rats and all other white things, his anxiety might have been less substantial. Yet what is there to expect from an eight-month-old infant whose skills for reasoning haven’t evolved yet, unlike for us adults, supposedly…

Over this summer and the past nine years it seems that many adults across the globe have regressed back to Albert’s age whenever they are confronted with anything that has to do with Islam. But what caught my attention in particular this summer were the numerous “democracy now”, BBC and CNN articles about the residents of New York City who have been actively opposing the construction of an Islamic Centre near Ground Zero. Judging the argument from the anti-construction perspective, I can see that people feel it’s insensitive towards the victims of 9/11 and their families when it seems that their sorrow and traumatic experiences are being pushed aside and they feel the enemy is allowed to settle down right where everything occurred.

However, as traumatic as 9/11 still is for Americans, it seems that this perspective lacks the capacity to separate the enemy that consists of a fraction of terrorists from the millions of Muslims that populate this planet. It’s not this fraction of lunatics who misinterpret the Qur’an to justify its terrorism that seeks to build an Islamic centre near Ground Zero. Rather it’s the followers of a peaceful, inclusive religion whose ancestors even lived together peacefully with Christians and Jews, providing them protected status when Islam was established under the prophet Mohammad, as quoted in Frederick Denny’s book “An introduction to Islam” (74).

But it’s shocking to know how people like Newt Gingrich feel about the religion of Islam. According to the article “Is ‘Ground Zero mosque’ debate fanning the flames” by Finlo Rohrer, Gingrich went so far as to compare the possible construction of an Islamic Centre near Ground Zero to Nazis placing their propaganda next to the Holocaust museum in Washington DC (Fohler, 1). Should we by Gingrich’s and the other Islamic Centre opponents’ logic then also fear every construction of a new Christian church because it could breed another Timothy McVeigh or more crazy Pro-lifers that will shoot doctors like George Tiller? Would it be better to stop enrolling children in Catholic schools or keep them out of reach of any Catholic priests because it would be considered insensitive with all the sexual abuse scandals in various Catholic facilities and churches that made the news this year? No, it would be absurd to hold the entirety of Christian/Catholic believers accountable for the acts of pedophiles or terrorists, so why should there be an exception for Muslims?

If people feel uncomfortable with building an Islamic Cultural Centre near Ground Zero it proves that they are incapable of seeing past their obvious faulty perceptions. In a time reminiscent of the McCarthy era many Islamophobes regress back to their Little Albert stage and every Muslim and the religion of Islam are suddenly perceived as strangers or a threat to National Security. All of this in spite of the fact that many Muslims have been living in the States for generations, hence why they are fellow Americans. Just like every other devoted American citizen, Muslim Americans have been contributing to society, the economy and have even become involved in politics, as quoted in Moore’s article “Teaching about Islam in secondary schools: curricular and pedagogical considerations” (282).

It seems all too common that these opponents tend to forget that people of all religious faith died during the 9/11 attacks. Or they never bothered to learn that out of solidarity for their country Muslim Americans participated in the War on Terror and fought abroad in a Muslim country like Afghanistan for the U.S. war machine. As quoted in Fait Muedini’s article “Muslim American College Youth: attitudes and responses five years after 9/11” ;“Some students understood and believed that some Muslims would ‘gladly aid the U.S. as they see themselves part of this country;’ they would join because they would ‘believe it’s their duty’” (Muedini, 55). Denying Muslim Americans their right to assemble in an Islamic Cultural Centre near Ground Zero is therefore an infringement on their first amendment as U.S. citizens and outright discrimination against their religion.

With the Islamophobia that followed the 9/11 attacks one of the incentives of the proposal to build the Islamic centre near Ground Zero was to create an interfaith outreach, as pointed out in Finlo Rohrer’s article, “Those behind the Cordoba House Project, such as Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, say they want to build something which would assist interfaith understanding” (1). According to an interview on MSNBC with Cenk Uygur of the live streaming internet talk show “The Young Turks”, the proposal to build an Islamic Centre near Ground Zero had been a project for years developed by Muslims, Jews and Christians together because that’s where their community is located. Consequently, are there any better ways for prejudiced people to convince themselves that Muslims wish no evil upon others because the proponents of the Islamic Centre want to start a dialogue? Wouldn’t the gesture of constructing an Islamic Centre near Ground Zero be convincing in itself to further show that Muslims denounce terrorism and the 9/11 attacks?

America is a country that has prided itself in its pluralism. In times like these when a country has been wrecked by a malicious attack it’s imperative that its citizens of all faiths decide to come together by freeing themselves of any resentment towards one another, to reach out, get to know another and cooperate to work towards a better future. Otherwise, saying the pledge of allegiance about an indivisible nation resembles more the recitation of a naïve fairy tale.

Denny, Frederick Mathewson. An introduction to Islam.New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall,
2006.
Moore, James. “Teaching about Islam in secondary schools: curricular and pedagogical
considerations”. Equity and excellence in education 39.3 (2006): 279-286.
Muedini, Fait. “Muslim American College Youth: attitudes and responses five years after
9/11”. Muslim World 99.1 (2009): 39-59.
Rohrer, Finlo. “Is ‘Ground Zero mosque’ debate fanning the flames”. BBC.CO.UK. 25August 2010. New York’s Little Alberts
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11076846>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsTm8SVSdkg

Kyle Butz
Community Member

“This is the Civil Rights Act of the 21st century,” said Democratic Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina. It was a sunny Sunday with rabid Tea Party protesters at their most fear-filled state yet; indeed, after nearly a year of frenzied and borderline hysterical debate, our country had renewed its hyper-partisanship as the vote came down to 7 out of the 435 congressmen who represented their polarized constituents with an equal fervor. On March 21, 2010, the House of Representatives passed the Health Care Reconciliation Bill, which represented our government’s greatest undertaking with respect to the health care crisis in half a century. “We pushed back on the undue influence of special interests,” said our President. “We didn’t give in to mistrust or to cynicism or to fear. Instead, we proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things.”

The liberal intelligentsia has championed the vote with slogans such as “Yes We Did!” Progressives point to the vote as sufficient evidence our democracy is alive and kicking, but what our independent voters, who don’t suffer from the widespread party fanaticism that grips this country, might ask themselves today is “What Have We Done?” They would be right on the money if they find that this vote was just another prime exercise in corporatism. People now have to become customers under Big Pharma or face a fine. This country talks a lot about freedom, yet under this bill there’s only the option to buy from private insurance corporations.

Here are some freedoms we are currently barred from: a public option, Medicare buy-in, drug re-importation, Medicare drug price negotiation, and a shorter pathway to generic biologics. All of these would spur competition, innovation, and cost control; nevertheless, according to the bill just passed, 25 million Americans remain uninsured. Access to the “high risk pool” is limited and the pool is underfunded; only those who have been uninsured for more than six months will qualify for the high-risk pool; only 0.7% of those without insurance now will get coverage, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates it will run out of funding by 2011 or 2012.

Health care stocks have risen 29%; sky rocketing premiums will remain due to immunity from anti-trust laws. Bernie Sanders’ provision in the Senate bill for a single-payer system won’t be implemented until 2017. Meanwhile, there is still nothing to stop a health insurance company to drop an American while they’re sick. Government health care expenditures as a percentage of GDP will actually increase. Our national debt takes more unnecessary blows. Yes, they say this bill made history, when in actuality the only history it made was adding one more legislative measure to increase corporate wealth concentration, which will undoubtedly be used to further shape our electorate, the elections, and the elected. If we wanted to make history we could have declared health care a civil right under the U.N. Declaration of Universal Rights and establish a single-payer health care system—but we didn’t. This is unacceptable. This was predictable.

Why should this major regression in the public’s power have been foreseeable? Lobbyists were paid $1.2 billion in 2009 alone to influence the reform of our health care system. An armada of more than 4,500 lobbyists descended on Washington; we’re talking a ratio of eight lobbyists for each member in the House and Senate. In the face of such awesome corporate influence, how could we have expected anything different from our representatives? With our representatives elected on the very same corporate dollars, how can we expect anything else from other representatives we elect? Can we expect anything? For an example we can all relate to, the bar is set so low for Obama that he merely has to execute his office better than his predecessor. What are we expecting?

The only way to be able to expect anything out of this representative democracy is to reclaim it. In 2000 there were 16,000 lobbyists in Washington; in 2005 this number skyrocketed to 35,000 lobbyists. Our situation is becoming more and more dire by the year as issues such as overflowing prison populations, a mounting national debt, and climate change are escalating out of control. As of now we have a corporate autocratic government; meaning, our government is insuring corporate welfare over the welfare of the public. The only way to reclaim our government is to rejuvenate our democratic culture and reinvent our civic infrastructure in America to shift power away from the current corporatocracy.

There is a plethora of ways we can all help make this shift as voters, taxpayers, consumers, workers, and shareholders to give power to those who are in favor of the public interest. What should be in the public’s interest? We must start with campaign finance reform in order to ensure that those with the public interest in mind will have a shot at becoming elected; this can be achieved through limiting campaign spending, banning soft money contributions that are channeled through political parties, eliminating tax breaks for lobbying, and reducing the limit on P.A.C and individual contributions.

When we’re able to send politicians on the public’s side, rather than a corporation’s, our representatives will be able to propose a ballot initiative for the federal level. A National Initiative will allow a group of citizens to sponsor a proposal to garner the support of enough signatures to force a national vote on an issue that the public feels strongly about; thus, the public will have a tool to change and create laws at the federal level, which has been endorsed by such notable figures as Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky. With this new tool of democracy, the American public will be able to take the next step and vote on enacting term limits for Congress.

Some would claim that there is one too many an “if” in the last couple of paragraphs, but there are a couple of quotes in this one. Margaret Mead once said to “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Ralph Nader felt this was incomplete, imploring people to “think what stamina and inner-strength drove abolitionists against slavery, women seeking the right to vote, workers demanding trade unions to counter the callous bosses of industry, dirt-poor farmers of the late 1800s who, taking on the major railroads and banks, used their heads, hearts, and feet to launch the populist-progressive reform movement. These efforts advanced our country immeasurably. They were efforts by ordinary people doing extraordinary things without electricity, motor vehicles, telephones, faxes, or e-mail.” Take the first step today and join the “Chippewa Valley Move To Amend” Facebook group.

http://blogs.reuters.com/frontrow/2010/03/26/who-wins-on-u-s-healthcare-reform-washingtons-lobbyists-for-starters/
http://www.nyttimes.com/2010/03/22/health/policy/22health.html
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/mar/18/top-10-facts-to-know-about-health-care-reform/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/fact-sheet-the-truth-abou_b_506026.html
http://www.votenader.org/issues/political/shift-the-power/

Lisa Brancaccio
Undergraduate/Print Journalism

August 29, 2010

Dear Diary,

Thank Facebook that summer is over. (I say “Facebook” because I recently decided to change my religious views on Facebook to “Facebook” due to the fact that I usually cannot trust the things that God does, but Facebook never lies.) Fuck the humidity, never-ending boredom, and crazy-ass lightning storms that take down entire Starbucks’ (true story, it happened in my hometown...also, fact: I work at the Caribou right across the street. HAHAHA SUCK ON MAH NUTTIES, STARFUCKS!) Anyway, fall should be good. I’m going to be doing a bit of soul-searching, which is probably a good thing considering I made way too many mistakes last semester and then wrote funny versions of them and published them in this VERY magazine. I mean, I’m not necessarily saying that I’m going to stop doing any of that, but my mistakes probably won’t involve the police or Jewish boys this semester (sorry, Jew Boy from Illinois). I’m moving on to bigger and better things, like re-taking classes at a different school with people with names like Rico Gonzalez and Sherlisa Jones, working nearly full time serving coffee to bitchy trophy wives with the crazy ability to show nip through like five sports bras and spandex work-out tanks (it’s surprisingly gross), and creeping on my 17-year old sister by going through her texts and discovering that she really is the whore I always thought her to be. Yes, this semester these diary entries probably won’t involve Mary Jane or wishes to have a dick in my mouth (not that I’ve stopped wishing for that..), but I’m sure I’ll find SOME inappropriate adventures somewhere in the great sink hole that is the Dirty Mil (we literally do have a sink hole, though, so that part is f’real).

Keep it real, Eau Claire.

Lisa

Carl Hein
Undergraduate/UW-Stevens Point

Greetings again to Matt Van Teuteberg and UW-Eau Claire; this time I write from overseas while I study abroad in London, the land of fair manners and bad teeth. If I may say Matt, I do enjoy reading your articles because they show perfectly how damaging taking a 2,000-year-old book written by genocidal goat herders can be. If you actually thought that I think you want slavery re-enacted then you missed the purpose of my response. I know you don’t want the laws of the OT established, despite Jesus having said none of the laws of Moses were to be changed until all things have come to pass.1 How do I know this? I know because Mosaic laws are immoral. Mosaic laws call for the stoning of unruly children and homosexuals. Mosaic laws call for the death of women who are not virgins when they marry. The entire 600+ laws the “morally perfect” OT makes, in summary, is death.

You said, “God didn’t create slavery, man in his sin created slavery, but God decided to work within its system for His glory and our good.”2 That doesn’t make it any better. A being who abhors slavery should do all in its power to stop it, not take time to regulate it. You regulate what you cannot stop, not what you can. We didn’t see Abraham Lincoln bartering with Jefferson Davis over how to regulate slavery; he just stopped it, that’s what your “almighty god” failed to do. That single statement you made summarizes my entire point. If God chose to permit and institute slavery for his own glory, then he is an immoral prick not worthy of the glory and attention billions of people give him. You said the system can be good, but I say a system which allows for the ownership, no matter how well the slaves MAY be treated, of fellow human beings as property (no different than a cow or table) is in ALL cases immoral. For one to allow or even rationalize (what you are doing) is morally disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself.

Next you present bible verses, let’s start with Genesis 1:27. “God created Man in His own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female He created them.”3 You think it shows how your god is above his special creation and separate from humanity. That much I will agree with you, a thing which condones slavery, genocide, murder, etc. could only be separate from humanity. Fortunately, he’s only a piece of thousand-year-old fiction. You say Isaiah 5:16, “but the Lord Almighty will be exalted by his justice, and the holy God will show himself holy by his righteousness”, shows how your god is always right, moral, and perfect in all ways but if he allows for slavery and genocide (even human sacrifice4,5), how can he be right, moral, and perfect? No, the truth is your god, and if I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times, is immoral. Your god doesn’t make things right, he makes things horribly wrong. You obviously believe the bible is an accurate portrayal of your god’s character. My question to you is why do you believe the bible is accurate? You’ve already espoused your belief that no amount of good works gets one to heaven, that only faith in Jesus is the one golden ticket. You then followed that up with Genesis 6:5, interpreting it to mean your god punishes based on both thought and deed. First of all, how hypocritical is it to punish a person’s bad actions but not reward the good ones? Second, your god is a tyrant because he thinks he’s in the position to punish people based on what they think! Third, it is immoral to reward based on faith over deeds. If a government behaved as your god is portrayed in the “holy” bible, a war and revolution would be fought to gain ACTUAL freedom. Your god doesn’t care about liberties and human rights; he only cares for blind obedience. I’m sorry, but I refuse to drink that Kool-Aid.

I asked you for evidence if this concept of sin as defined as a transgression against god, exists. You gave me a link to livingwaters.com/good/. This offers no evidence because it already operates with the assumption sin exists. It gave no logical arguments or proofs, only a stupid quiz which, much like your god, forces people to fail.

On to your next point, how every man, woman, child, toddler, and infant deserves to burn in hell for eternity. Your reasoning to believe this immoral claim is your analogy of lying. In short, lie to your son; no big deal, lie to the wife; sleep on the couch, lie to the boss; lose your job, and lie to the President; placed in Guantanamo.6 I’ll give you Matt, some credit in that this analogy doesn’t break down “at a certain point” because it never even has a chance to come together. This analogy simply shows your ignorance of our justice system. People are not punished for crimes based on who the crime was against, people are punished based on the severity of the crime. Lying to your wife about that dress she bought is nowhere near comparable to lying while under oath testifying against a serial killer. Lying to the President about a pencil you took is not comparable to lying to the President about the location of Osama bin Laden and to link the two as equal crimes shows you (and your god) to be morally corrupt. Lying isn’t always wrong either *big shock*. I’ll give you a scenario to think about.

*Knock knock* “This is the SS, do you know the whereabouts of any Jews?” Unknown to them you actually have some very close friends who happen to be Jewish hiding in your attic. What do you do? Lie, knowing fully well that if these Nazis suspect you of lying they will kill you, your family, and friends? Do you lie even though you know it’s a sin and God will sentence you to eternal torment? Do you lie to protect the lives of your friends and their family (including their children and elderly)? Or do you tell the truth and give up your friends to be sent to death camps certain to never see them again. I don’t care how much your god detests the act of lying. The moral thing to do in that situation is to lie your fucking pants off. If your god would send me to hell for saving a few lives then he is truly an ass. Ultimately, what our god is doing is eternally punishing a finite crime, something which is never moral. I fail to see one aspect in your god for which I am less moral.

I’m sorry if I’m asking a lot of questions here but you’ve forced me to ask them because you offer no answers. How self-centered is your “almighty god?” I’ve known some really self-centered people but your god really takes the cake. He creates to glorify himself so that his creations may also glorify him. How dare you state you know the meaning to human life and offer no reason to validate that position (before you list off more bible verses, saying “because the bible says so” isn’t even close to a half-way respectable answer). No one knows the meaning to life and anyone who says they have the answer ought to be exiled from society to live life as a bum (that’s right; you don’t even get to live life as a noble hobo).

Here’s another big question. Why do bad things happen to good people? Your answer is simple, bad things don’t happen to good people because no good people exist. Sorry, but you’re wrong. I’m a good person, my brothers are good people, my sisters, my parents, my friends, most people are good people (with the exception of you because you’re an immoral dick). Your response to this question can be summarized as this. God doesn’t heal amputees because the men and women who bravely fight in our armed forces deserved worse than what they got. You sound like one of the stooges of the Westboro Baptist Church. I’ll expect to see you in a picture when they next protest a soldier’s funeral.

Can you believe that this is only part one? More in the next issue.7

1 Matthew 5:17-18.
2 Van Teuteberg, Matt. “Selling Your Daughter Into Slavery Part 2” The Flipside, Vol. 7, Issue 12.
3 Van Teuteberg, Matt. “Selling Your Daughter into Slavery Part 3” The Flip Side, Vol. 7, Issue 13.
4 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges%2011&version=NIV
5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt66kbYmXXk
6 Van Teuteberg, Matt. “Selling Your Daughter into Slavery Part 3” The Flip Side, Vol. 7, Issue 13.
7 Matt, as I am out of the country this two part response will be my last submitted in through The Flip Side newsletter until I return. If you want to continue please feel free to email me (or if any readers want to email me) at chein492@uwsp.edu

Ashly Curtis
Undergraduate/Creative Writing

It was the dead of night; icy mud puddles filled the dips in the woodland path. The air was so cold, goose bumps formed on the arms of those who dared look out their windows. It was early April, but even so, not a night for strolling through the woods. Try telling me that, though, and I’d laugh in your face and run off on the path before you could even feel offended by my scoff.

My name is Phoebe. I like to have fun. Most of my fun stems from some supremely terrible ideas-turned-decisions that I or my friends have had. So it happened that Elliot and Tabitha, my partners in crime, joined me on a midnight escapade in the woods on a night when anyone else refused to even look outside.

Naturally, I was wearing a skirt and my zebra-striped adventuring sneaks (they make me move like a gazelle). My pals, having slightly more common sense (or less sense of adventure?) than I, donned sweaters and hiking boots. Not to be deterred by my keen sense of fashion, however, I took the lead. Braving sheets of ice scattered between the aforementioned mud puddles (muddles?), I led my friends deeper into the woods.

Tabitha, repelled by Elliot’s incessant blathering*, soon joined me up front. We quickly found ourselves lost in a scintillating conversation about things not to be repeated here. It seemed to be going swimmingly for my little clan when suddenly a chill crept through my spine. Was it my imagination, or were there only two sets of footsteps on this path where moments ago, there were three?

“Tabitha…did you see where Elliot went?” I asked.

“I didn’t even know he was gone…” she said.

Deciding that finding Elliot would be the best thing for everyone involved, we turned around. Creeping along the path, jumping at every noise we heard in the trees, we tentatively called out for him. Let me tell you, two girls alone in the woods at night is very different than two girls and a boy in the woods at night.

After retracing our steps for probably fifteen minutes I saw out of the corner of my eye, the flash of Elliot’s knapsack moving swiftly among the trees. Motioning Tabitha to follow, I ran along the nearly invisible path, nestled between two large trees, which Elliot must have taken. As the distance between us shortened, Tabitha and I slowed to a gentle saunter, wondering where we were off to and how we would ever find our way home again.

I nearly crashed into Elliot as he came to a halt, letting out a shocked, “Oh my GOD!” I eagerly craned my neck over his shoulder, seeing before me the largest tree I had EVER seen. This tree must have been at least four times the size of all the others in the wood. The size, however, was not what elicited Elliot’s shock. Fastened upon the side of the tree, nearly all the way to the top, were small pieces of wood acting as makeshift steps. Elliot and Tabitha stood in awe while I took charge, as per usual, and made my way up the tree.

Even with my gazelle/zebra sneaks, I struggled to keep my footing on the crooked wood steps as my friends followed behind me. The air was nipping at my exposed skin, freezing me from the outside in. With each frosty breath I took, I could feel my movements becoming more laboured. As much as I wanted to call it quits, I knew there was no way I could live with myself if I didn’t get to the top of this behemoth.

I finally found my fingers gripping the last step and pulled myself up. To my surprise, there was a kind of shanty, a lean-to, but in the tree. A tree-to. We pushed aside the dirty blanket serving as a doorway, holding onto branches to keep from stumbling, and quickly searched for whatever may be hidden in such a place. Drugs? Porn? Dead bodies? We could only begin to imagine what kind of shenanigans had been got into up in this tree.

I scanned the area, using the octopus flashlight I’d gotten for just such an occasion. Those seven extra lights really made a difference, as I knew they one day would. I’d all but given up when I spied a knot in the tree, slyly hidden by a stunningly lifelike painting of Andy Boden. I pushed it aside and shined my little tentacle lights inside. Sure enough, there was a small wooden box. Locked. And was there a key? Of course not.

Not to worry; I always come prepared for these things. I pulled my sledgehammer out of my knapsack and smashed that lock right off. Elliot and Tabitha crowded around me; all three of our breaths were held in suspense. You could have heard a pin drop. All the way down on the forest floor. I slowly lifted off the top of the box.

What I found inside, you’ll never believe. It was a bottle; one of those old-fashioned chemistry-like bottles with a tiny little cork on top. There was a hand written label that read ‘Elixir Of Life’. My friends and I looked at each other in astonishment. Elixir of life? For real?

“Let’s drink it!” Elliot said.

“Let’s not and say we did. It could be poison or something,” Tabitha chimed in.

Just as I was about to voice my own opinion on the subject, we heard sirens. And they were not far. In fact, there were powerful flashlights shining right into our tree-to and what sounded like a helicopter just above the treetops. We heard pathetic sounding voices, trying to reach our height, with the help of many megaphones. We couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying, probably some cop-like jargon about surrendering with our hands up or something.

At any rate, we knew we had to get out of there, and fast. There was no way we were going to give up our Elixir of Life, poison or not. Looking for a quick escape, Tabitha found a long rope attached to the nearest branch, probably placed there for this exact moment. She fearlessly grabbed onto it, took a few steps backward, and threw herself into the black abyss. Elliot followed shortly thereafter, which left me standing alone in the tree-to, Elixir of Life in one hand, adorable octopus flashlight in the other. I was just about to tuck these things in my bag and grab onto the rope myself when a heavyset man hurled himself into the tree-to, landing next to me with a thud. His badge flew out of his hand and I could see his FBI credentials.

I knew there was no time to waste. The FBI? This must be some Elixir… I grabbed onto the rope, Elixir in tow, and took a running leap toward the absolute nothing that welcomed me outside. As I let go of the rope and let myself fall to the ground, I looked up at the FBI agent, angrily shaking his fist at my smooth departure. He quickly faded as I fell farther and faster away. The ice-cold air rushed over me and I let myself get completely lost in the tranquility of the journey downward.

As you may expect, Elliot and Tabitha were waiting at the precise location of my landing, arms open, ready to catch me and our beloved Elixir. I hopped out of their arms as fast as I landed in them with a huge grin on my face. We survived! We climbed up the monster tree, retrieved the Elixir of Life, escaped the FBI by swinging George of the Jungle style by rope, and lived to tell the tale.

I stood watching my eager friends waiting for me to reveal our prize. I had the octopus light in one hand, but nothing in the other. Perhaps it fell in my bag on the way down? That had to be. I frantically searched my bag, dumping the contents all over the muddy ground. Not there. Elliot and Tabitha watched me, beseeching me to find our Elixir, to not have lost the one thing that could prove what we’d accomplished that night. I looked again and again, but still nothing. We searched the entire area of my fall, but it was as if the bottle never even existed.

For the next few days, we returned to the woods, looking for the path that led to our tree. We went at all hours of the day and never found that path again. Did we simply make up this magical tree and the Elixir of Life hidden inside? You decide.

‘Til next time.

*Elliot is the type of person who NEVER shuts up…

Michael Schmitz
Undergraduate/History

March, 4 1933. It was a cold, somewhat dreary day, thought President-Elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt as he got into his official car and headed for the Capitol. It was a momentous day. He was about to announce his 100 Days plan, and after that the New Deal. He thought the speech that was prepared was good, “All we have to fear is fear itself.” He wished that he could be certain that what he was doing would help, that the people who had turned to him would not be let down, that “Happy days would be here again.” Unemployment was at 10% and was rising, it would top out at over 25%, and banks were failing faster than anyone could count how much money was being lost. It was in this atmosphere as they approached the Capitol that an aid said to him, “Sir, if this works you’ll be remembered as the greatest president who ever lived.” His response was, “And if it fails, I’ll be remembered as the last president who ever lived.”

So began the public policy known as the New Deal, a system of regulations and public works meant to alleviate, or end, the Great Depression and to insure that such an event never happened again. Seventy-three years later, many in the United States do not understand the effects that the New Deal had on America. The Right decries it as the beginning of a road to serfdom, a fool’s errand, or “FDR’s Folly.” The Left lauds it as crucial, helpful and timely, but laments the lack of forward progress, that America did not decide to “share its wealth.” The New Deal had a profound effect on America that I believe many people have forgotten. It saved us. The New Deal alleviated poverty enough that the American people in desperation did not turn to fascists or communists or socialists. FDR assured people that all would be better, that the policies in place would help them, and that they would all, as a nation, with its democratic institution intact, get back on their feet. Many today do not understand how close the United States came in the early 1930’s to revolution, civil war, military coup, or totalitarianism. Between pro-Nazi groups on the Right, Communists on the left and a military afraid of what might happen in a revolution, it is a wonder that we made it through at all. So let me be clear, this article is not meant to prove or disprove the economic theory of the New Deal, it is not meant to pass judgment on the fiscal sense of those in charge, but rather to illustrate the effect, intended or unintended, that saved America from despair.

Let us begin our tour of the pantheon of malcontents with Huey Long, by far the most dangerous man in America. FDR would say that himself; he was dangerous precisely because he might have become president in 1936. His policy was known as “Share the Wealth;” this would have created taxes that would have made it impossible to earn over a million dollars a year, or have at any one time more than five million dollars. This money would then be redistributed in increments of 5,000 dollars so that people could have a “homestead” and a car and the other “ordinary conveniences.” Along with these benefits there would be guaranteed old age pensions, free college tuition, a limited work week, and a month of paid vacation.1 All that was asked for in return by Huey Long was that people be silent and obedient to their new government. If the New Deal sounded like socialism, the “Share the Wealth” policy must be Soviet-style communism. However Long’s tempting proposal was not accepted by the masses for two reasons. The first was that Long himself was assassinated and with him the momentum was lost. The second was that the New Deal made people secure enough to resist the despotic, though tempting, offer of “the Kingfish” Long.

The other side of the aisle was no better in its rhetoric. The German American Bund was the premier Right wing, anti-democrat force in the United States. This organization which took its orders directly from Berlin, was hoping for the transplanting of National Socialism (Nazism) to the United States. This organization which called itself a “militant group of patriotic Americans” who stood against “all Racial Intermixture between Asiatics, Africans, or non-Aryans…Alien controlled, international so-called Labor Movements; and the Rackets of International finance.”2 This group could have, just as Hitler had in Germany, taken over. Had the Depression worsened and the people in despair had looked for a leader, they may very well have let the demons of their humanity overtake them.

To conclude, the New Deal is widely misunderstood. Conservatives act as if the Depression and the fixes to it acted in a vacuum. They act as though the American people would have, or could have, waited for the Free Market to work its magic and fix their problems, which ranged from un-employment to farm and home foreclosures to loss of savings and lack of the bare necessities. In those uncertain times, the promises of prosperity made by men like Huey Long and groups like the German American Bund would have been tempting. Into this vacuum of poverty and despair came a man who did not destroy our freedoms or our institutions, but rather protected them against the forces of extremism. That man was Franklin D. Roosevelt. He used not intimidation or fear to inspire, but rather hope and reassurance. It was as though he had become the grandfather to an entire nation, and he gave that nation a reason to continue.

1 Jonathan Alter. The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006) 310-311
2 T.H. Watkins. The Great Depression: America in the 1930’s. (New York: Blackside Inc., 1993) 317