By Nancy Spannaus Nov. 22, 2018—The coincidence of this year’s Thanksgiving holiday with the 55th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has provoked me to write this post. Kennedy’s assassination was a horrific turning point in our nation’s history, the opening shot in a series of assassinations […]
By Nancy Spannaus May 25, 2018—On this day in 1961, four months after he was inaugurated, President John F. Kennedy gave the United States its most far-reaching and consequential mission ever. “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing […]
By Angela Vullo March 4, 2018–When parents and grandparents are attending nonstop funerals for their children and grandchildren, something in our society has gone awry. As Shakespeare put it, “The time is out of joint.” It reflects some major dislocation in our country, and it’s time we got to […]
A Book Review Bobby Kennedy, A Raging Spirit Chris Matthews Simon & Schuster, 2017, 352 pp. by Angela Vullo Jan. 29, 2018—My purpose in this review, like that of author Matthews, is to address the question of Robert F. Kennedy’s true identity in American politics. I believe that Matthews, proceeding […]
by Angela Vullo January 7, 2018–Just as the U.S. Congress was preparing to vote on the controversial tax reform, UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston released a damning report on poverty in the United States, on December 15, 2017. Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, […]
By Nancy Spannaus Oct. 19, 2017—The battle is on over the Republican tax plan, and there’s no felicitous end in sight. The Republicans are right that economic growth has to be stimulated—but their plan won’t direct money into crucial sectors of the economy. The Democrats are right that the nation […]
![ST-C30-2-62 17 Aug 1962Trip to Western States, Pierre, South DakotaPlease Credit "Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F Kennedy Presidential Museum and Library, Boston"[scratches across negative horizonatally]](https://i1.wp.com/americansystemnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/JFK-At-Oahe-Dam-In-Pierre-South-Dakota-August-17-1962-05.jpg?resize=200%2C150&ssl=1)
August 17, 2017: On the 55th Anniversary of President Kennedy’s Speech at the Oahe Dam, Pierre, South Dakota by John Ascher New Orleans and Katrina, 2005; Minneapolis, 2007 and the I-35 Mississippi River Bridge Collapse; February 2017, Northern California, and the failure of the Oroville Dam spillway…. Tired […]
By Nancy Spannaus July 20, 2017—The current stalemate on healthcare in the Congress provides a perfect opportunity to “get it right,” beginning with the approach represented in the legislation of “Medicare for all.” The United States is faced with a health care emergency, and action to deal with the […]
By Angela Vullo July 17, 2017–With federal and state budgets spiraling out of control, ever more desperate elected officials are totally befuddled as to how to pay for repairing and rebuilding the infrastructure which is collapsing all around them. The Trump administration has proposed privatization as the answer for fixing […]
By Nancy Spannaus May 20, 2019–George Washington’s “Grand Idea” of uniting the country through developing the Potomac River as the gateway to the West, was the subject of a lively book talk last night. Author Joel Achenbach spoke to a group of approximately 30 people about his book The Grand […]
By Nancy Spannaus May 15, 2019—On May 8, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, under Chairman Peter DeFazio, took a baby step toward increasing Federal spending on vital national infrastructure. It passed out of Committee HR 2440, a bill which would allow the Army Corps of Engineers to utilize the […]
JFK’s Conservation Policy versus Today’s Environmentalism
JFK’s Conservation Policy versus Today’s Environmentalism features Kennedy’s 1963 speech in Hanford, Washington.