Sometimes we get so concerned about where we are going we forget where we have been, and where we have come from. Fredrich Hegel said "the chief thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history." The point being is that we pay scant attention to history because it doesn't make headlines.

Some time back I was talking to an old friend of mine and he told a poignant story of when he was a little boy. He was living in Waldo, Florida and his father had a foreman's job working for Ed Ball's FEC RR. One Sunday his father got up and left church in the middle of services without any explanation. This wasn't usual behavior and it piqued the curiousity of a 10 yr old. About the time church was over there came a parade down the main street in front of the church. It was a march of hooded men in robes....it was a march of the Klu Klux Klan. This was the first time this 10yr old ever saw the Klan march or a Klan outfit. He was both frightened and excited by the display of potential terror. It was in this excited state that he looked down........and recognized his father's shoes. In his home this matter was never spoken of. He told me the story 75 years after the fact.

I ask you, is our civilization doomed today? Was it doomed 75 years ago. We are just people. Probably no better, nor no worse than we have ever been. We just have different means at our disposal. What we do with them depends on the leadership we choose and how we are guided by that leadership. Politics is important, nationally as well as internationally and the consequences are created by how we choose. This is either frightening or reassuring depending on your viewpoint.

Publius