Steve Hochstadt

Steve Hochstadt is a writer and an emeritus professor of history at Illinois College.

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• 
  May 10, 2017
  

  Whose Internet Is It?

  by Steve Hochstadt

  One of the exciting new developments in computer connectedness is the “internet of things”, the networking among objects we own, like cars, refrigerators, thermostats, and light switches, so they can communicate with us and with each other. In cute ads on TV, a baby turns lights on and off at home by touching a smart phone. In real life, the most basic of your daily actions at home can be monitored and recorded by companies you don’t know about or be hacked by criminals.
  

• 
  May 3, 2017
  

  Better Living Through Chemistry

  by Steve Hochstadt

  A majority of conservative Republicans believes that climate scientists are influenced by desire to advance their careers and political ideology, not by scientific evidence or public interest. To put it simply, conservatives don’t believe in science or scientists, if it’s inconvenient.
  

• 
  Apr 18, 2017
  

  Celebrating Power, Celebrating Resistance

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Celebrations of power are all around us. We don’t often think about how that power was exercised, about who might have suffered to make that power possible. Those who resist power usually pass into the fog of history because they were not famous and they had little opportunity to create imposing objects to memorialize their actions.
  

• 
  Apr 15, 2017
  

  What’s Wrong With Iowa?

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Why do the people of northwestern Iowa keep electing Steve King to Congress? It’s not because he does anything useful there. Since he was elected to Congress in 2003, he has sponsored over 100 bills and not one of them even got out of committee, even though Republicans controlled the House for most of those years. He was named the least effective member of Congress in 2015 by non-partisan InsideGov.

  

• 
  Mar 28, 2017
  

  Europe is Alive and Well

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Europe is good. Three times as many Europeans as Americans trust their national legislatures. One-sixth as many Europeans as Americans are in jail, probably related to the fact that one-fifth as many murders occur. Health care is universal and Europeans live longer. According to the “World Happiness Report”, Europeans are the happiest people in the world. Americans do pretty well, too, ranking 14^th, about the same as Germans.

  

• 
  Mar 21, 2017
  

  Democracy Demands Wisdom In Its Citizens

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Conservative Republican politicians don’t believe that “democracy demands wisdom and vision in its citizens”. They attack the findings of geology, evolutionary biology, and climate science. They support the spread of fake news and promote alternative facts. They disparage the media in general. There is nothing new about the attacks on truth and knowledge by the Trump administration except its shamelessness.

  

• 
  Feb 28, 2017
  

  Museums and the Power of Facts

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Seekers of illegitimate power always create distorted narratives to justify their dominance. Freedom and justice depend on popular insistence on learning the truth about themselves, their world and their rulers.

  

• 
  Feb 21, 2017
  

  The World is Laughing at America

  by Steve Hochstadt

  A Dutch television program aired a satirical video with a voice-over pretending to be Donald Trump. Soon similar videos were being produced by late-night shows across Europe. The whole world is invited to laugh at, and simultaneously disdain, the American President. America has become the laughingstock of the world.

  

• 
  Feb 14, 2017
  

  Capitalism + Bauhaus = Ikea

  by Steve Hochstadt

  The failure and success of the Bauhaus idea might demonstrate that the radical leftists of the early 20^th century produced some wonderful ideas for improving daily life, but that their social implementation needed capitalist economic structures.
  

• Jan 28, 2017
  

  Marching Around the World

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Marches alone won’t stop Trump. Real political influence requires continued and widespread popular pressure in favor of positive action.
  

• 
  Dec 15, 2016
  

  We Need Help Fighting the Banks

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Dodd-Frank makes it less possible for the big banks to push us into tilted arbitration when the banks act like Wells Fargo. It’s an equalizer for the little consumer dealing with the big banks. Without it, we’re at their mercy.

  

• 
  Dec 7, 2016
  

  How Government Really Works

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Everyone appears to be worried that soon-to-be President Trump will make some gigantic blunder, putting us all at risk. More likely is that the Republican Congress and the Republican President will pass hundreds of less notable acts which together will make the rich richer, the powerful more powerful, and the rest of us less able to control our lives.

  

• 
  Nov 22, 2016
  

  Get the Lead Out!

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Conservatives say regulations are “job killers”. I say they are life savers.
  

• 
  Oct 18, 2016
  

  Republican Conspiracy Theories

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Republican voters have been well prepared by their political leaders to believe wild theories which make them victims of vast conspiracies.
  

• 
  Oct 4, 2016
  

  Women as Second-Class Athletes

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Will corporate America only change its bottom-line mindset when the real America buys more tickets to see professional women play? Will that only happen when our public media, from the cable giants to our local papers, pay more attention to professional women?
  

• 
  Sep 30, 2016
  

  Donald Trump Believes in Climate Change

  by Steve Hochstadt

  When he considers his financial interests, Trump is a climate change believer. Trump the businessman was arguing with the Irish authorities about allowing him to make an extraordinary investment to protect his property over the course of this century, because “it could reasonably be expected that the rate of sea level rise might become twice of that presently occurring”. All the while, Trump the politician insisted over and over to the American public that he did not believe in global warming, that the scientists cited in his Irish petition were liars and cheaters, that the whole thing was a hoax.
  

• 
  Sep 13, 2016
  

  The Paralympics: A History of Inclusion and Inspiration

  by Steve Hochstadt

  The athletic performances of the thousands of Paralympic athletes in Rio, far exceeding what most “normal” athletes could accomplish, make the word handicapped seem inappropriate. They have achieved much more: pride in what their bodies can do, rather than shame for what they can’t.

  

• 
  Sep 6, 2016
  

  The Architectural Politics of Rebuilding Berlin

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Discussions about demolition and reconstruction inevitably touched political ideologies of all kinds. Two Berlin sites, one east and one west, show the variety of architectural politics which determined the process of rebuilding.

  

• 
  Aug 30, 2016
  

  The Destruction and Rebuilding of Warsaw

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Warsaw, the capital of Poland since 1596, was completely leveled by the German Army. It is hard to picture what those words mean.

  

• 
  May 24, 2016
  

  What Does Retirement Mean?

  by Steve Hochstadt

  Our most eloquent revolutionary, Thomas Paine, was a “forerunner of modern social insurance”, as the Social Security Administration calls him. In 1796, he advocated a 10% tax on the inheritance of property to create a fund which would pay a yearly pension to everyone over 50, “to enable them to live in Old Age without Wretchedness, and go decently out of the World.”