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Russia Today
2 days ago
- Politics
- Russia Today
Prof. Schlevogt's Compass No. 21: Pity picks sides – Ukraine mourned, Gaza shadowed, Russia blamed
George Orwell famously remarked, 'If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.' In the brutal realities of war and suffering, where borrowed beliefs replace independent thought, Orwell's warning cuts to the core: liberty is a hollow promise if it shields us from truths we resist. True compassion demands stories that challenge our biases and stretch our empathy beyond neat binary tales of 'good' and 'evil.' Yet political forces and media gatekeepers often silence inconvenient truths, trapping us in cycles of selective pity and moral stagnation. Breaking free requires a clear-eyed understanding of how the masters of political technology – the craft of shaping public perception, emotional response, and mass engagement – operate. Aristotle knew, and Attic tragedy showed, that pity follows a predictable pattern. With a precise grasp of the intricate mechanics of this multifaceted emotion, today's information warriors expertly calibrate its five interlocked enablers to achieve strategic ends: intensifying pity for Ukrainians while simultaneously dulling the emotional resonance of Gazan and Russian suffering. A point of interest: In much of the Global South and other regions outside the gravitational pull of the collective West, media narratives often diverge sharply from these Manichaean – black and white – portrayals, offering more complex and nuanced alternative perspectives that challenge this simplistic moral dichotomy. Because pity is a fragmented and inherently fragile emotion, Western political communicators repeatedly hammer binary messages with such relentless force that they become bludgeons, flattening nuance, crushing dissent, and echoing the same moral cues until they calcify into dogma. Yet this strategy carries sharp tradeoffs and reveals a critical vulnerability: the moment the narrative wavers – whether because information warriors shift priorities, or because reality refuses to comply and breaks through – the emotional scaffolding begins to buckle. Pity, once forcefully orchestrated, can swiftly curdle into skepticism, fatigue, or even backlash. What began as a unifying moral impulse risks collapsing into disillusionment. Pity is less a human reflex than a programmed response, and it works wonders. Let us use the 'Political Pity Equation' to lift the veil and expose how today's information magicians in the collective West conjure and banish public sympathy across three theaters of public perception – leveraging selective pity to sculpt a world that serves their interests: Ukraine, Gaza, and Russia. The magic formula is as simple as it is powerful: Pity (P) = Undeservedness (U) + Surprise (S) + Gravity (G) + Resemblance (R) + Closeness (C). The first enabler of pity, harm deemed undeserved, is selectively amplified or muted at will across the three discursive battlegrounds to serve the aims of information warriors. From the moment Russia launched its Special Military Operation (SMO) in 2022, Ukraine has been consistently framed in political discourse and the global media as the innocent victim of an unprovoked, unjust invasion – a lone David bravely defying the overwhelming, ruthless force of Goliath. The widely circulated account of an alleged Russian massacre in the small Ukrainian city of Bucha – its name aptly meaning 'trouble' and grimly echoing 'butcher' – detonated the moral center of the narrative and set off a seismic narrative shift. Dismissed by Moscow as a hoax, it nonetheless crystallized into a decisive turning point, reshaping the normative landscape of the war. The chilling chronicle of reported events intensified global outrage, sharpened ethical clarity, and heightened moral urgency, thereby galvanizing massive political and public support for Ukraine's cause. Information leaders also deployed their most potent weapon: children – the master key to the human heart. They wielded child-centered imagery with precision, intertwining it with the universally protective figure of the mother. Headlines flared with claims of Russian forces abducting thousands of Ukrainian minors, wrenching them from their families under the smoke of war. The stories struck like thunderclaps: maternity wards in Mariupol, Kherson, and beyond, allegedly reduced to rubble, tiny cries silenced beneath collapsing ceilings. Each narrative was calibrated not to inform, but to ignite – grief, outrage, and unwavering allegiance. In an unexpected twist, the first driver of pity – the perception that suffering is undeserved – offers a raw glimpse into this emotion's fragility and the tradeoffs woven into the texture of emotional manipulation. The moment Ukrainians are cast as reckless in their demands, ungrateful to benefactors – including refugee-hosting nations – and their government framed as authoritarian and belligerent, the edifice of pity begins to crack. In this scenario, initial sympathy dissolves into irritation, then hardens into outright contempt, as Ukrainians are subtly recoded as morally flawed: no longer blameless victims, but architects of their own undoing. In that shift, their plight ceases to be tragic and starts to seem deserved. Yet the tide has not turned decisively on this front, at least not yet. If Ukrainian pain still reliably commands Western pity, why do so many Gazans and Russians suffer offstage – and worse, without global compassion? Part of the answer lies in downplaying Aristotle's first enabler of pity: undeservedness. As a result, pain is met not with empathy, but with silence, suspicion – or even blame. The human toll is heavy, yet it goes without equal attention, recognition, and moral acknowledgment. In the Gaza Strip, civilians face a relentless Israeli blockade, mass displacement, and daily bombardment: hospitals, food centers, and schools all targeted. The UN reports nearly 88% of the territory falls under Israeli evacuation orders or militarized control, cramming over 2 million people into just 46 sq km – barely a third the size of Walt Disney World – as critical infrastructure lies in ruins and essential services have broken down. Strikingly, over 100 aid groups accuse Israel of orchestrating a deliberate, systematic campaign of forced mass starvation in Gaza – a crime, critics may argue, that brief pauses cannot undo. As if the cruel ordeal was not already beyond measure, Israel aims to corral Gaza's entire population into a so-called 'humanitarian city' – a narrow, sealed, permanent enclosure from which no one will ever be allowed to exit, branded by critics as a modern concentration camp. Western leaders, on the rare occasions they dare to voice even the mildest reproaches of Israeli force, invariably hasten to hedge them with the obligatory mantra affirming Israel's right to exist and defend itself – as if Hamas ever threatened the Jewish state's very survival – excusing, whitewashing, and offering cover for relentless, disproportionate shock and awe. Tellingly, Palestinian agony is still rationalized as the foreseeable and righteous payback for Hamas's 2023 attacks on Israel – a narrative fulcrum that undercuts the first enabler of pity: blameless suffering. The killing of some 60,000 Palestinians – mostly women and children, with the toll still climbing – is spun not just as justified retaliation for the reported death of about 1,200 people (about 400 of which were security forces), but as a necessary price for the rescue of some 250 hostages, soldiers among them. Even scenes of utter ruin are filtered through unproven claims of proximity to militant targets. To preserve the narrative's absolutes and sharp moral lines, disruptive context is quietly erased, such as the inconvenient history of what critics describe as prolonged Israeli aggression. Notably, Hamas viewed its incursion as a desperate bid to break free from a decades-long cycle of Israeli oppression. To protect the hostage story from complicating nuance, Western media seldom mention that Israel has nearly doubled its Palestinian prisoners since the incident – now around 10,000, including minors and many held without charge – whom Hamas, for its part, regards as Palestinian hostages for future swaps. The pain of Palestinian civilians, when noted at all, is often refracted through narratives that question their innocence instead of recognizing it as collective punishment: killing and uprooting an entire population to pave the way for the so-called 'Gaza Riviera.' This framing draws on long-cultivated, nested stereotypes. At the macro-level, Western political and media elites have long equated the Palestinian people wholesale with extremism and militancy, dulling empathy and easing indifference. At the meso-level, the Gaza Strip is persistently cast as inseparable from Hamas, fueling endless cycles of violence. At the micro level, civilians are often falsely branded Hamas sympathizers, guilty by association. Together, these overlapping layers blur the line between civilian and combatant, victim and perpetrator, veiling the true injustice, muting ethical alarm, and stifling ethical reckoning. Thanks to this persistent, multi-tiered formatting, Israel – unlike the so-called 'pariah states' Russia, Iran, and North Korea – remains insulated from serious Western sanctions, including lasting arms embargoes, despite allegations of grave war crimes. Germany's rationale for inaction is particularly revealing: holding Israel accountable might jeopardize diplomatic leverage over its government – leverage that, in truth, is vanishingly small, if not entirely imagined. Contrast this with Russia – an ostracized nation whose grief has been morally exiled. For many people there, the conflict with Ukraine is a harsh reality – relentless shelling, surreptitious drone strikes, and crippling economic sanctions tearing through daily life. Yet the Western political and media machine suppresses pity primarily by blanking out the Russian suffering or, in the rare cases that it is mentioned, casting the pain as deserved, blaming civilians for their government's actions. What should move the audience instead becomes a ledger of guilt. Conflating Russian identity with military aggression and geopolitical culpability, Russians are portrayed as the authors of their own misery – not victims, but complicit enablers functioning as extensions of state power. Their pain is portrayed not as a human tragedy, but as policy consequence – a purportedly imperial and irredentist nation framed as reaping what it sowed. When civilians die in drone strikes or conscripts return in coffins, the world looks away. Not because the pain is not real, but because it has been labeled deserved. Western discourse has scrubbed Russian suffering of innocence, casting every civilian as an accomplice, every wound as retribution. To entrench this skewed perspective, political technologists twist facts and erase the stark reality of innocent Russians killed by Ukrainians. Take the sunbathers – including children – torn apart on a crowded Uchkuyevka beach in 2024, as Ukrainian cluster bomblets rained down. Though captured on video and confirmed by eyewitnesses, the ruthless attack was swiftly dismissed as stray debris. By contrast, Ukrainian deaths are routinely portrayed as premeditated, merciless acts of terror by Russia against defenseless civilians. Conspicuous, too, is the silence around the 2014 Odessa Trade Union building fire, where 42 pro-Russian protesters burned to death. And this, even as the UN and Council of Europe censured Ukraine for failing to prevent the tragedy and for serious lapses in policing and justice. Also buried from view is the 'Gorlovka Madonna' – a mother claimed by Ukrainian shelling in 2014, arms wrapped around her slain child amid the rubble, a raw symbol of shattered innocence. Heretical suggestions that Ukraine bears any responsibility for the conflict – through nationalist provocations or entanglement in Western ambitions – are sidelined, replaced by a clear-cut, simplified narrative of pure victimhood. By dehumanizing afflicted Russians and sanctifying Ukrainian losses, Western discourse effaces any sense of injustice that would evoke true pity, instead breeding moral detachment and deadening compassion. Inconvenient analogies that contextualize and relativize Russia's war – from the Cuban Missile Crisis to Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq – or provocative thought experiments – like Russia using Mexico as a launchpad against the US – are airbrushed from the conversation. Such disruptive comparisons, which fracture moral lines, are drowned out by a binary narrative demanding one villain, one victim. An element of shocking surprise, such as calamity striking unexpectedly and suddenly, is often interwoven with perceived injustice and acts as a powerful additional catalyst for pity. Western media framed Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, literally, as a bombshell, sparking global compassion for the embattled underdog. Yet the reality is starkly different, as the following will reveal. Admittedly, historians in retrospect often fall prey to hindsight bias: the illusion that outcomes were obvious all along. But viewed from just before the invasion, with no foresight of what lay ahead, clear and urgent warnings of looming catastrophe were already sounding, as proven by key agencies flagging the threat at the time. In December 2021, Russia issued a high-stakes ultimatum to NATO and the US, demanding sweeping security guarantees, and in the weeks before the invasion massed an estimated 150,000 to 190,000 troops along Ukraine's border. US intelligence accurately predicted the scale, direction, and time window of the broad offensive. In fact, the forecast was so precise that global media managed to fly in star reporters and position cameras on rooftops, primed for the spectacle that, true to form, graciously obliged – as if on cue for the world's lenses. The repeated framing of Russia's attack as 'unprovoked' not only forged a sense of injustice, but also amplified surprise – a clear example of the first two enablers of pity intertwined. To uphold this dominant, slanted storyline of abrupt and shocking onset, Ukraine's fraught history with Russia – and the fairly predictable eruption it triggered – was erased. Prudent statecraft would have Ukraine, like Belarus, Kazakhstan, and others, pursue harmonious relationships with its far stronger neighbor. Sound judgment would have called for leveraging deep ethnic, economic, and cultural ties instead of courting confrontation and banking on risky Western intervention. Another moment where an unexpected rupture shocked the world: the 2023 Hamas attack. Because it was painted as an unimaginable bolt from the blue – though hardly the first act of horrifying violence in the region – sympathy for Israel surged. By contrast, Palestinian suffering, stretched out over years, faded into background noise. Western media consistently blunt outrage by repeating that Israel had 'warned' Gazans before airstrikes – as if forewarning, especially when escape is impossible, absolves the violence; as if announcing destruction somehow renders it less brutal; as if Israel holds the right to dictate the movements of over 2 million besieged, captive people in Gaza – now reportedly reduced by 10% since the war began. Russians, too, harvest few 'pity points' from the collective West, as their suffering is framed not as surprising but as expected retribution for the invasion. In some ways, Russia fares even worse than Gaza in the global media, with even fewer stories or images of civilians harmed by Ukraine making the rounds. Political technologists dial the volume of suffering up or down, orchestrating pity like a soundcheck. The images of Ukrainian civilians sifting through rubble for survivors after bombings, mothers cradling wounded children in ravaged hospital corridors, and soldiers limping from the frontlines all paint a picture of pain that is serious yet not total and final. Stories of cities shattered but still resisting, families displaced but clinging to hope, show suffering that demands empathy, resolve, and assistance. This raw, visible struggle embodies Aristotle's condition perfectly: harm that is tragic but yet incomplete, stirring deep, enduring pity and – its vital counterpart – inspiring resolute action across the globe. By contrast, Israel has barred independent reporting from Gaza, hiding the human toll from clear view. Without vivid images or personal stories, public empathy and solidarity falter. Western media deepen this detachment by subtly casting doubt on casualty figures, labeling them, even in headlines, as claims from 'Hamas-run' sources with presumed agendas. No such qualifiers appear for Israeli data. Meanwhile, Israel's relentless airstrikes and bulldozing flatten and erase entire neighborhoods in Gaza, while its suffocating blockade of the Strip starves hospitals of fuel and children of food, breeding a sense of endless catastrophe. When whole communities vanish beneath the rubble, devastation feels too vast, too abstract, too overwhelmingly conclusive to move hearts or rouse action. For Russians, grief caused by Ukraine often unfolds quietly: perhaps a mother receives a sealed envelope bearing news of her son's death, a village school shuts down after teachers are lost, or neighborhoods strain under rising prices. With much of this suffering framed as the cost of political choices, and lacking the immediate, agonizing cries for help seen elsewhere, the pain lacks its sting – muting pity despite the real human losses. To conclude, information warriors wield pity like a precision-guided weapon –calibrated, targeted, and devastatingly effective. That makes it all the more urgent to grasp what fuels this emotion. Crucially, pity is stirred not only by perceived undeservedness, shocking surprise, and the sheer scale of suffering, but also by what I call 'protected relatability'. [Part 2 of a trilogy on the politics of selective pity. To be continued. Part 1, published on 26 July 2025: Prof. Schlevogt's Compass No. 20: The Political Pity Equation – Who deserves our tears?]
Globe and Mail
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Globe and Mail
Shane Krauser Directs Veritas Debate Academy Through Summer Bootcamps
Shane Krauser is the director of Veritas Debate Academy, an experienced trial attorney, and a nationally-renowned speaker. Veritas Debate Academy completed a round of Summer 2025 Leadership and Liberty Bootcamps. Shane Krauser, the director of the Academy, organized the intensive effort that included several dozen students throughout the Phoenix metropolitan area. Some students traveled from as far as Yuma (AZ), Holbrook (AZ), and Lehi (UT) to participate. Taking on the role of an Arizona state senator, the students adopted a bill, lobbied for the bill, moved the bill through the 'committee,' appeared in front of a mock media, and argued on the senate floor to pass the bill. Over the course of the three days, students learned lessons on how to lead, communicate, and build relationships, and they became fantastic, passionate advocates through the process. Shane Krauser, a former adjunct professor of constitutional law, said, 'These students were nothing short of exceptional, and I am honored that so many parents have entrusted me with a part of their child's education. The lessons the young people learn here are designed to set them up for long-term success.' Veritas Debate Academy is headquartered in Gilbert, AZ, was founded in 2024, and focuses primarily on the homeschool community, teaching courses that revolve around leadership, the U.S. Constitution, the foundations of America, along with speech and debate. The three-day bootcamp is a featured course that is primarily held during the Summer. During this three-day journey, the students absorbed, learned, engaged and debated numerous ideas around the proper role of government and the principles of freedom. The level of impassioned debate and focused leadership was a high point of the bootcamps. Students debated 21 different issues ranging from gambling to the appropriate driving age, seatbelt mandates to the legalization of cannabis. Each of the issues provided a chance for the students to take a position and then debate the pros and cons. Cheryl Todd of Litchfield Park, AZ attended with her granddaughter and said, 'I can't recommend this experience enough. My granddaughter absolutely loved every minute of this experience! The topics covered sparked so many meaningful conversations around the family dinner table—and honestly, I learned just as much as she did! She walked away with a renewed passion and a real hunger to learn more, and she's already asked me when she can do it again. Thank you, Veritas Debate Academy and Shane Krauser, for pouring into the next generation of liberty-minded leaders—this is exactly what our families and our nation need! ' The popularity of Veritas Debate Academy continues to grow, not just across Arizona but throughout the nation. Shane Krauser, a serial entrepreneur who is bringing Brooker's Founding Flavors Ice Cream to Arizona in late 2025, noted, 'We have found a niche within the homeschool world, and homeschooling families have embraced us as much as we have embraced them. I am so hopeful for our future.' To learn more about Veritas Debate Academy and the courses offered, go to For media or general inquiries, contact Janelle Krauser at 480.570.3698 or email Contact@ Learn more about Shane Krauser at: Website: Social Media: Media Contact Company Name: Veritas Debate Academy Contact Person: Janelle Krauser Email: Send Email Phone: +1 480.570.3698 City: Gilbert State: Arizona Country: United States Website:
Wall Street Journal
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Don't Wait for July 4, 2026
My social circle isn't waiting until next year to celebrate the landmark events of the Revolutionary War ('Countdown to America's 250th Birthday' by Paul Beston, op-ed, July 5). My wife and I hosted a dinner with friends on the anniversary of the battles at Lexington and Concord (April 19) and again for Bunker Hill (June 17). Such occasions are a great way to recall the bravery and sacrifices of those who fought to establish liberty and create the U.S. Our next dinner will commemorate the British evacuation of Boston (March 17), following Washington's siege and Henry Knox's heroic transport of cannon from Fort Ticonderoga to Dorchester Heights. Surrounded and at the mercy of rebel artillery, William Howe had no chance but to return Boston to its rightful residents. Such success demands celebration.
CBS News
06-07-2025
- General
- CBS News
How Lady Liberty became a beacon for immigrants
At the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., stands a 46-inch-tall model of an American icon – the Statue of Liberty – whose origin story may surprise you. "When this idea began, it was really about liberty; it wasn't about immigration," said Lonnie Bunch, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, That's right: Lady Liberty had nothing to do with immigration when she was first proposed in 1865. "The United States had ended slavery," said Bunch. "That's why, if you look, she's standing on the chains and shackles." A model of Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi's statue "Liberty," at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Lucia RM Martino/Smithsonian American Art Museum But it would take more than two decades for the idea to be realized. While the statue itself would be paid for by the people of France, the Americans would be responsible for its prodigious base. "Almost anything you do involving culture or art, you gotta raise money for," said Bunch. And so, this model came to our shores in 1883, three years before her full-sized sister, to drum up support. She stood in the Capitol Rotunda, to no avail. Congress declined to foot the bill. "Many people in the United States thought, you know, what is this? Is this a New York City thing? And why should we care about it if it's just New York City?" said Bunch. One supporter, 34-year-old poet Emma Lazarus, concerned about the plight of Russian Jews seeking asylum in America, penned a sonnet called "The New Colossus" for a fundraising auction. In it, she imagined Lady Liberty as a "mother of exiles" welcoming the "huddled masses" through the "golden door" to America. "That's a great poem," said Bunch. "It's important, but it really became, more than anything else, the best way to understand the possibilities of immigration in America." At the time, the poem got little notice. At the statue's dedication in 1886, not a single speaker mentioned immigration. A parade of ships marks the inauguration of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, Oct. 28, 1886. Library of Congress But Lazarus' poem turned out to be a prophecy. In 1892, within sight of the statue, America's first-ever immigration facility opened at Ellis Island. By the 1920s, more than 12 million immigrants from Europe had come through Ellis Island. "There are stories of people pulling into this harbor, seeing that symbol, and just dropping to their knees and weeping," said author and journalist Jia Lynn Yang. And very few people were turned away, even if they lacked documents. "If you can get to the border, you're in," said Yang. But, she notes, not all Americans were prepared to welcome them: "You have to remember, the country is still relatively small at this time. So, it's pretty shocking to the American people to have millions of people showing up from Italy, Eastern Europe, different religions, they're Catholic, they're Jewish, different foods, different languages." And while it might strain credulity today to imagine people back then thinking that Italians couldn't assimilate, Yang said, "People were writing columns and long essays saying these people don't belong here." And so, in 1924 President Calvin Coolidge signed the Johnson-Reed Act, which created a system of ethnic quotas that essentially banned immigration from countries outside of Western and Northern Europe. It was the first major immigration restriction since 1882's Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred the entry of Chinese laborers. But the 1924 law didn't apply to countries on this side of the Atlantic. Yang said, "The thinking was, these are our neighbors. We need to make it feel like they're welcome to come and go." So while there were no "illegal" immigrants from Mexico during this period, for more than 40 years – through a global depression, a world war, and the Holocaust – the door was virtually shut to everyone else. By the 1950s, the number of immigrants was getting smaller and smaller. "Talk to somebody in, like, 1955, they're like, Yeah, immigrants, that's old news," said Yang. And that would've been the case forever and ever, except that for 40 years, a group of lawmakers and activists felt that the law was discriminatory, and they wanted to change it. Among them: Brooklyn Congressman Manny Celler. He voted against the 1924 quotas as a first-year representative, and for decades fought to make America more welcoming to immigrants. Then, in 1958, a Massachusetts senator with his sights on the White House published a pamphlet calling for a change to the nation's laws. John F. Kennedy's "A Nation of Immigrants" would introduce the now-ubiquitous phrase. Yang said, "The book is trying to establish almost a new American history that says these people who came, you know, decades ago, you may have forgotten them; this is what makes America American. It's the fact that we are a nation of immigrants" – a sentiment new to a lot of Americans' ears. After Kennedy's assassination, at the height of the civil rights movement, the reformers (including Manny Celler, who was still serving in Congress) seized the moment, and on October 3, 1965, at (where else?) the Statue of Liberty, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act, which ended the ethnic quota system. "Those who do come will come because of what they are, and not because of the land from which they sprung," he said. But even the law's most ardent backers didn't anticipate just how many people would end up coming from all over the world. Since 1965, when that law went into effect, the share of foreign-born people living in America has slowly crept up to about 14 percent of the U.S. population – roughly the same as it was back in 1924 when the ethnic quotas were imposed. Yang says that today, if you meet someone and their family is from Africa, the Middle East or Asia, it's likely because of the paper that Johnson signed in 1965. "This law really transformed the whole country," she said. In a twist, the 1965 law limited immigration from Mexico and the rest of the Americas, setting the stage for the illegal immigration crisis at the Southern border. But it also allowed Jia-Lynn Yang's own parents to come to the U.S. after escaping the civil war in China, a fact she hadn't realized until writing a book about this chapter of the immigration story. She said, "When I looked into this history, I really understood how contingent my family's presence is here. I took it completely for granted, right? I grew up steeped in Statue of Liberty, Emma Lazarus poem, nation of immigrants – of course we were allowed to come here. It's a nation of immigrants." Yang said her parents felt deeply lucky to have come to America. "And I have two children now," she said. "Our family's entire story changed because we were allowed to come here. And now everything after me in the family tree is an American story." Surmising the posture and demeanor of Lady Liberty, Secretary Bunch said, "She's not a warrior. But she is powerful." And that power remains undiminished, says Bunch, who believes it is the immigrants themselves who gave the Statue of Liberty its meaning. "They imbued it with this notion that this is a symbol of the possibility of America," he said. "That's why I call it a statue of promise." FROM THE ARCHIVES: Charles Kuralt on the Statue of Liberty (Video) The reopening of Ellis Island to the public during America's bicentennial year prompted CBS News' Charles Kuralt to offer his thoughts on the sight of Lady Liberty as viewed by generations of immigrants, and on the diversity of a nation that welcomed those from every land seeking a safe haven and opportunity. For these new Americans, Kuralt said, "They carried our greatness in their baggage." (Originally broadcast May 28, 1976.) For more info: Story produced by Mark Hudspeth. Editor: Ed Givnish. See also:
The Independent
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Musical 'Hamilton' and historian Ron Chernow to receive Liberty Medal awards
The Broadway musical 'Hamilton' and the historian whose book inspired it will collect the National Constitution Center's Liberty Medal this fall, an award for efforts to spread liberty around the world. Ron Chernow and ' Hamilton ' will collect the medal and its $100,000 cash prize at an event in October on Philadelphia 's Independence Mall. Award organizers credited the book and musical for having a 'singular impact' by bringing to life and spreading the story of the U.S. Constitution and Alexander Hamilton, a pivotal figure in drafting and promoting the governing document. He was also the first U.S. treasury secretary. 'Hamilton,' which debuted on Broadway a decade ago, has become a cultural touchstone, winning the Pulitzer Prize, a Grammy and 11 Tony awards. Lin-Manuel Miranda, who created the musical, called the award a deep honor. 'The Constitution is not just a historical artifact — it's a challenge. A call to participate. To speak up, to imagine better, and to work, every day, toward that more perfect union,' he said in a statement released before the formal announcement. Chernow's many books have included biographies of former presidents George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant and, more recently, of writer and humoristMark Twain. 'In writing about Hamilton, Washington, and Grant, I've come to see that liberty is not a gift passed down through generations — it's a responsibility,' Chernow said in a statement. 'One that demands courage, compromise, and commitment. These men were imperfect, but they dared to envision something greater than themselves.' The Liberty Medal was established in 1988 to honor the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution's 1787 signing. Recent winners have included the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and PBS documentary filmmaker Ken Burns.
