History can help one understand the present. Unfortunately there is little history taught these days in schools simply because one cannot teach history without offending some person or other or some point of view. Most students these days don't know when the Civil War was because it can't be understood without attempting to understand slavery, for example. The American Experience, on PBS, is one show attempting to put things in the context of history.
Those who think terrorist bombings are something new should watch 'The Bombing of Wall Street", written and directed by Susan Bellows for The American Experience. The bombing at Wall and Broad Street on Sept. 16, 1920 killed thirty-eight people and injured hundreds of others. The perpetrators were never found, though the general thinking was that it was the work of Italian anarchists, followers of the deported Luigi Galleani. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and Justice Department investigator J. Edgar Hoover (who believed Russians were behind the bombing) started keeping lists of suspected "subversives," and the FBI continued to do so for many years, as Italian and Irish immigrants were replaced by Hispanics, Jews and others.
PBS and Turner Classic Movies are the two stations I watch the most. Before cable TV I would be amused by those who said they only watched Channel 13, but the station has remained true to itself (see my posting of Feb. 17, 2017) while all the channels around it have changed and meretriciousness reigns supreme.
