April 7, 2010 THE VILLADOM TIMES IV • Page 27 never actually worked except in retrospect. Read your Thucydides, fans of democracy. The United States of Mexico, the French Third Republic, and the German Weimar Republic all based their constitutions on the Constitution of the United States, but they all flopped because of too many idealists on the one hand and too many crooks on the other hand – and too small a reliance on skilled labor as opposed to government-subsidized bureaucracy. American sports coaches masquerading as history teachers may indeed attempt to blame the failure of education for the failure of responsible government in Europe before World War II, but they are talking through their collective hat. France and Germany both notoriously produced a huge surplus of college-graduate equivalents, and these people, educated to a standard that makes American “softcollege” graduates look preposterous, were attracted to the far left or the far right because the center could not provide them with meaningful work. Attempts to provide economic equality for all citizens without regard to intellect or thrift crashed into the private financial empires of a handful of oligarchs, and the ordinary decent people were caught in the middle and opted for flashy, dangerous extremists who offered what looked like easy answers. We want to make sure this does not happen in the United States. We need to understand that it could. Most people cover themselves by whatever means necessary. They care little or nothing for their fellow humans. The American Indians often helped the first European settlers because they had no concept of how many Europeans there were, or how many might come to the New World. The Pilgrims gave Indians scholarships to Harvard and made sure the Indians were sober when they signed away their land. After that, it all went downhill fast. Slave traders knew they were in it for the money, but slave owners sometimes convinced themselves they were doing the slaves a “favor.” When the Turks came down on the Armenians, the Kurds joined in plundering and murdering them. It was a rotten thing to do, but a great way to steal from people who had a work ethic. Very few “Aryan” German academics refused university teaching or bureaucratic positions because the Jewish professors who had previously held the jobs had been fired and driven into exile by Darwinian Nazi thugs who were not smart enough to fill these positions themselves. One exception was physicist and Christian Max Planck, who opposed anti-Semitism to such an extent that Nazi genealogists were delighted to discover that he was one-sixteenth Jewish. That explained it! Germany’s artistic community and the churches had a far better record on trying to protect Jews, or at least to prevent them from being murdered, than did the learned professions. Conrad Veidt told people he was Jewish out of sheer defiance, even though his father was a Lutheran pastor, and Gert Frobe – “Goldfinger” – hid a Jewish friend in his apartment. Ferdinand Marian, whose lover was part Jewish, drank himself to death after being ordered to act in a Nazi propaganda film. Oddly enough, the niece of the film’s producer, Veit Harlan, later married Stanley Kubrick. While the artists connived to save their Jewish friends, the academics and bureaucrats clicked their heels and extolled Hitler as the hope of Europe. Right here in the United States, it was the conservatives – FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, Attorney General Nicholas Biddle, and Republican Presidential hopeful Robert Taft – who argued that the relocation of Japanese-Americans who were not plausible suspects was a terrible idea. Japanese-American Relocation was unconstitutional and resulted in what the American Civil Liberties Union very belatedly called the greatest violation of the U.S. Constitution in American history, except for slavery. The ACLU did nothing at the time, and neither did the liberal community. The people who promulgated relocation were not fusty old-money Republicans who traced their ancestry back to the Mayflower and slammed the door of the country club to more recent immigrants. They were ultra-liberals and, in some cases, closet communists. The first person to propose wholesale relocation was Henry Morgenthau Jr., third generation immigrant, a rich dunce whose brain transplant was Harry Dexter White, second-generation immigrant. White later turned out to be an agent of the NKVD (KGB) who kept the Soviets informed about cabinet-level politics. The future Supreme Court liberal Earl Warren, attorney general of California, was also a strong supporter. So was “Doctor Seuss” – Theodore Geisel. When the U.S. won the war through massive bombing of Japanese women and children, Geisel made a film called “Decision for Death,” in which he blamed Japanese culture rather than the Stalinist intrigue that dragged the United States into a war the Japanese didn’t want because they knew they couldn’t possibly win. When a public school teacher showed up at a local council meeting to extol “Doctor Seuss” for the reading program, I showed her some of the cartoons Geisel had drawn defaming Jews, Africans, and Japanese-Americans. She was horrified, but she went through with the presentation. If she extolled Seuss after that, she should not be in a classroom influencing young Americans who need to learn that racism is bad and scapegoating is worse. Fire every teacher who is incapable. Fire every public official whose job is not vital. Believe me when I say, with the progressive collapse of the economy, the people who cannot do their jobs will not be hard to replace. We need to get back to a world that rewards thrift and intelligence. The school system in particular, and the public sector in general, are the best places to start. The infrastructure is broken. Using money from the State of New Jersey to save programs that were in any way dubious is a dead issue. This hits me right in the gut because the phenomenal library services I have experienced in both Ridgewood and Glen Rock could be threatened, and that is a personal problem. Glenn Hoefler in Glen Rock and Mike Shinn in Ridgewood were big players in the research team that helped produce my most recent book. While I cannot say I could not have done it without them, the work might not have been cost-effective. I cannot see any reason to curtail library research at an affordable cost, and I cannot see why the state would see this either – unless that state believes all serious scholars live in Greenwich Village. New York City is a write-off in economic terms since the stock market tanked, but that is not our problem. As far as New Jersey is concerned, New York can survive on bridge and tunnel tolls. The Metropolitan Opera, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, the Jewish Museum, the Frick Museum, and the Museum of the American Indian, really do not have any counterparts on this side of the river. Even Staten Island has a far better collection of old houses than anything in New Jersey. So does Museum Village in New York State, still a magnet for students from better schools because Roscoe Smith had the foresight to cluster everything from a log cabin, an early church, and a schoolhouse to a blacksmith’s forge and a broom-makers’ shop around a village green when land in southern New York State was still affordable. Historic Speedwell in Morris County is similar. My kids learned about the origins of the telegraph and Morse Code from this rustic museum. I heartily recommend Museum Village and Historic Speedwell to people who want their children to understand the rudiments of what made the United States a great nation. These two simulated settlements have as their theme a notion that needs to be revisited: For most of their history, the people of the United States made a living and built a great nation by working with their hands and producing useful goods that someone wanted to buy. Some folks seem to be allergic to the idea that anybody might make a living with his or her hands. They are stuck on the notion that the United States somehow became a great nation because everybody who lives here has multiple college diplomas paid for by the taxpayers if their families could not pay. That is not what’s playing. The United States became a great economic power because we landed on some of the planet’s best farmland and resources of timber, fur, coal, iron, copper, gold, and silver, and because the people who wrote the United States Constitution struck a unique balance between personal selfishness and political idealism. This came about because most of them, religious or otherwise, had a strong grounding in Calvinist theology and a strong background in reading about what went wrong with the Roman Republic, as opposed to the Athenian democracy often cited by public speakers, which Time to think: Let’s save what we can Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: The Junior Woman’s Club of Ramsey is once again proud to announce the success of our fifth annual Sweetheart Casino Night. We met our goal of raising $100,000 in five years! Our sold-out event was attended by 250 people who enjoyed a fun-filled night with delicious food provided by more than 25 restaurants and caterers. Lucky winners were dazzled by more than 100 phenomenal prize baskets and valuable auction items generously donated by hundreds of local businesses and friends. The majority of our revelers attend every year, looking forward to reconnecting with familiar friends and generously supporting Ramsey’s charitable and civic organizations. We would like to recognize and thank our Platinum Sponsors: All Things Media, Greenbelt Landscaping, Sebastian Construction, and ShopRite of Ramsey, for their generous support. Their contributions were key in making our event so successful. For the fifth year in a row, Garrick Lopez from Westy Storage proved indispensible as he helped us from Friday night until Sunday morning with the setup, transportation and breakdown of our event. We truly cannot thank him enough for his never-ending energy and assistance we have come to rely on and enjoy over the past years. The outpouring of generosity by everyone who attended or contributed to our night is humbling. Despite these difficult financial times, everyone found a way to contribute. In addition to the numerous volunteer hours our club members provide, the rewards of this collaborative effort will Sweetheart event a success provide needed assistance to so many organizations that make Ramsey the wonderful community that it is! Thank you. Anne Jacobus and Jan Mansley, Chairwomen JWC of Ramsey Sweetheart Casino Night Dear Editor: I would like to thank the hundreds of registered voters who signed my petitions to qualify me to run for township council. As a life-long resident, many of you have known me or worked with me doing volunteer work in our wonderful town. As a volunteer firefighter, ambulance driver, Boy Scout leader, and Scoutmaster, I have given thousands of hours of service to the citizens of Mahwah, and I valued every minute of it. Being involved in almost every aspect of the township has given me the background and experience to serve the needs of our citizens. I have 12 years of service on the planning board. I was the first part time fire inspector, and spent two terms on the town council, including four years as council president. I have been on, or still am on, the Mahwah Environmental Commission, Mahwah Library Board of Trustees, Mahwah Green Team, Township Community Cable TV Committee, representative to Watershed Management Area 3, liaison to Senior Citizens Advisory Board, and liaison to the Army Corps of Engineers’ Mahwah River Flood Control Project. My leadership as council president moved the township offices from cramped, $270,000 a year rental space to our township-owned building. (continued on page 21) Appreciates support