Today in History: Nov. 9

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Us versus them. It was served with our breakfast cereal, our school lunches, and the nightly news watched during dinner. The Cold War was a fact, a background noise, a tinnitus-like hum heard 24/7, sometimes from far away and sometimes next door. Its removal seemed to make us aware that it had always been there, how loud it was, and that it had been driving us all insane.

The Cold War’s end could be said to have started on this date in 1989 as citizens of East Berlin started to spontaneously destroy the Berlin Wall (photo at top), a barrier erected in 1961 to divide that beautiful city.
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It Can’t Happen Here, Can It?

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Certain though Doremus had been of Windrip’s election, the event was like the long-dreaded passing of a friend. “All right. Hell with this country, if it’s like that.”—Sinclair Lewis, It Can’t Happen Here

The title begs the question: what is the “It” that can’t happen here? The free, democratic election of a fascist (lowercase F, even though any difference in degree or style of fascism is truly no difference at all)? Or any movement to resist it after it takes power?

Sinclair Lewis gives one succinct answer at the end of the second chapter of his 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here: “The hell it can’t.” In the chapter, several of the leading lights of life in fictional Fort Beulah, Vermont, are conversing and considering the campaign promises of U.S. Senator Buzz Windrip, who is considering a run for the Democratic Party nomination against President Franklin Roosevelt.
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Today in History: Election Day

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

In the United States of America, today is Election Day. The next inhabitants of the offices of President and Vice President are to be filled by voters along with one-third of the seats in the United States Senate, the entire population of the House of Representatives, and many local elections (mostly, state legislatures).

Today’s presidential election is the 58th quadrennial presidential election in the nation’s history. The system as it has evolved is neither a truly popular vote nor a truly national one: today’s election is more a collection of entwined local votes that will add up to some statewide and national results. There are so many polling places across the nation that a census is not feasible: some states leave it up to the counties to make polling places available, so one must look for polling station information in those states by contacting county election officials.

If you are registered to vote, with or without a political party, but you do not know where your polling place is, there are many resources. Facebook has offered itself as a polling place locator and ballot information resource, for instance. Here is one other website: Vote411.org.
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