Israel Helms

Fiddling with Socialism: Recollections of the Future Israel Helms

Traveling with his grandson through the magnificent National Parks of Utah and Arizona the grandfather shares his deep concerns for the future of the America he adopted three decades ago at the onset of the Reagan revolution and fall of the Soviet empire. He reflects on his unique hands-on experiences in a Stalinist Russia, while enlightening his American born grandson to the major cornerstones of Russian history, and how it formed the fertile conditions for a totalitarian Bolshevik revolution. The grandfather explains to the young man how this seemingly benign social movement led to Socialism in Russia. With his bewildered listener he goes through the record of the American radical Left looking for advice from a monstrous power-hungry dictator of Russia. In lively discussions the grandfather shows his own philosophical transformation from an enthusiastic new citizen of the Country he deeply fell in love with, to a political novelist who realized that his new world is also vulnerable to miasmas of Fascism and Communist ideology. He stresses a need for the younger generations to learn and remember the lessons of a not so distant past. Based on past and current examples, he echoes strong warnings of numerous thinkers about the dangers of political correctness in our fight with enemies who follow no rules of the game. This very timely and easy to read book may be useful for Americans of any social strata who are unaware of the importance of this historical yet prevailing subject.