We must learn history's lessons

To the editor:

The day after the 1980 presidential election, I paraphrased philosopher Santayana's famous warning, "Those who fail to learn from history are bound to repeat it." I told my classes, "We have just elected a man who has spent his political life running to dismantle the New Deal. Let us pray we do not have to relearn all the reasons we had it." Events today are proving me right.

A serious look at events in the 1920s leading up to the Depression should have shown that Reaganomics would only lead to a repeat of earlier times. Today's events were foreshadowed by the savings and loan crisis in the 1980s, but our vision was obscured by being drunk on ideology and mythology and our ignorance of history.

With the assistance of a great war, we managed to recover from the last tragedy created by the same ideology and mythology. I believe that with the resources of America and the greatness of the American people we will eventually recover. However, we need to learn the lessons of American history. It is time to teach the honest lessons of history so that we can create a voting public that will never again be taken by the myth and ideology that have gotten us to where we are.

Another lesson I tried to leave my classes with was that democracy and capitalism, though linked, are not the same. I told my classes that some day we would have to use the tools of democracy to reshape capitalism. The moment has arrived.

DAN PRIGGE, Cape Girardeau