Thanks HRC for this Letter, one of your best IMHO.
I remember the Alamo. Or perhaps I should say, "I remember the Alamo myth." When I was 5 years old and living in Seattle with my parents and older sister, "Davey Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier" was a big deal. I had a (fake) coonskin cap which I only took off on days when I thought my Mickey Mouse hat (the big ears were fake, too) was more the thing. My cap pistol was real, however. Very cool! We did not have a TV yet, but our next door neighbors did, so we could keep up with all the larger-than-life events of the Fess Parker/Disney serial version of Davey's life that became intertwined with my yard play and, no doubt, helped plant the seeds of my interest in US history and put me on the road to unquestioning acceptance of many American myths that even now are wrapped up in my understanding of patriotism (which I define as "love of country").
Of course, Davey Crockett (my Dad had always called me Davey, too) got most of my attention for only a year, and then we were off to Pittsburgh PA and my heroes became Roberto Clemente and -- of course -- Alan Shepard who went into space for about 10 minutes on my birthday! My father -- a serious Civil War buff with a groaning bookshelf to prove it -- claiming his right to go out on a Saturday afternoon to do manly things with his son, took me, over my pacifist mother's objections, to see "The Horse Soldiers" on the big screen. Then, having seen I was manly enough not to cry or cover my eyes during the battle scenes, about a year later he took me to see "The Alamo" in which the heroic Union cavalry colonel (John Wayne) had been miraculously transformed into my first true love, Davey Crockett! (Eat your heart out, Fess Parker!)
So my "understanding" of Crockett and The Alamo changed face, but the example of Texian/American heroism was confirmed and -- I am ashamed to say -- my knowledge of that event, even after learning about how the US bullied the Mexicans into giving up what is now a major part of our Southwest, had remained largely unchanged until this morning.
Of course it is now no surprise to me that the Alamo was really about maintaining slavery and Manifest Destiny, and I have no doubt that better historians than John Wayne (who also produced "The Alamo) have gotten pretty close to knowing what really happened there, and I am not surprised that the underlying factors are less glorious than our pop-culture patriotism has made them seem. I am even pleased to know that Davey Crockett had the good sense to surrender and hang onto a few more minutes or hours or days of life, hoping, I suppose, to talk his way out of a bad situation rather than be snuffed out like his compatriots. He was reputedly a good talker and perhaps believed that discretion was the better part of valor, and all that.
Enough reminiscing.... My point is that myths, whether they be ancient Greek and Roman myths or the foundational national myths of modern nations are -- by definition -- both true and untrue simultaneously. Even the Alamo was an example of individuals fighting together in defense of something so important to them they were willing to die for it. We're talking immense physical courage in the face of near certain defeat and death. As the Italians say, "These are not peanuts."
So that part of the myth is true.
But history is not -- or at least shouldn't be -- aimed at propagating uplifting myths. Instead, history is the facts as determined by intelligent people doing the heavy lifting of finding out what really happened. It involves digging through rubble and rummaging in attics and re-reading long forgotten letters and journals and camping out in libraries and then trying to piece it all together so that we can understand the facts as they relate to other facts. And the best historians tend to be good writers as well.
So when historians do their job well, and the majority of other historians confirm the truth of one account over an earlier one, the only reasonable thing to do is accept the new version. And if this means discarding a glorious national myth much beloved by people like me with long memories, so be it, the truth is its own reward.
They very idea that Texas politicians would rudely cancel a "book event" at their State History Museum because the book in question is not to their liking and/or offends them is utterly unacceptable. Are we on the verge of a cultural revolution? Will they send people who disagree with their proto-fascist ideology to the gulags? Or are there gas chambers awaiting the "differently patriotic" among us? Thirty-seven years later, does 1984 still loom on our horizon?
Have the good people of the great State of Texas lost their marbles? Are they in the streets yet?
Leaving aside (which of course we cannot) global warming, I can think of no greater danger to our country and the world than politicians like Dan Patrick and Gregg Abbott.
And to your last point, we are getting distracted from the big things we should be paying attention to. Climate change is what we should be afraid of, and the widening gulf of income inequality, not CRT taught in grade school, which it never was, nor ever would have been.
Which is precisely the point, sadly Create crises where none exist, distract the voters, drive them away from the really critical problem of climate change while amassing billions and expanding the base for 2022. All with the illusions some want to believe. Evil incarnate. Dan Patrick should be written off as a brain-dead cultist. Instead, he is voted into a powerful position where he can manipulate the “narrative.” The saddest thing in the world to me is knowing how many of my fellow Americans, those who vote for people like Trump and Patrick, will die or be sickened by problems related to climate change. Grateful to you for noting this Kimberly! Now back to working on getting out the vote for 2022.
This should scare all of us. Qanon is encouraging their followers to run for school boards. If they do, and win, they can not only influence school policy, but also publicize...legally...their antics at school board meetings. Quite the propaganda tool. https://www.yahoo.com/now/qanon-plan-run-school-board-154949628.html
They’ve got one thing right - grassroots efforts and local elections make big impacts. Downplaying the crazy doesn’t make the crazy go away, it just makes it harder to see. And off-year elections with lower turnout makes it easier for them to be voted into service. Just as it makes it easier for anyone else running for local office. As quoted in the linked article, “Local action = national impact. Take responsibility for your school committees or boards. Get involved in the education of our children. Run for local, state and/or federal office.” That’s the new QAnon plan. Not so crazy.
Your quote from the article is exactly the template for civic engagement and what we need to be doing:
“Local action = national impact. Take responsibility for your school committees or boards. Get involved in the education of our children. Run for local, state and/or federal office.”
I feel silly replying to my own comment. Whatever. I just wanted to add that "Forget the Alamo" is a great title and should help to sell the book. I intend to latch onto a copy for sure.
Hard to imagine talented people ever choosing the educational field again under such oppressive anti intellectual gag orders. Smacks of some regimes we have known and know. What will be left will be robots, hacks and those who are willing to forgo thinking….
Post NCLB, efforts to standardize teaching in order to “help” less proficient teachers led to textbooks which robotized teaching. Textbooks were literally written in a “Teacher says”, acceptable “Student responses” format. As school librarian I was assigned a group of 5th grade students, reading at a 1st grade level, to tutor. When I stated that I had no training in remedial reading, I was told it wasn’t a problem and handed the remedial textbook. I stuck with it for two sessions and watched their eyes glaze over in 5 minutes. After that I dumped the textbook and started pulling resources from the library to work with them. Today’s good teachers are the ones who deviate as much as they are allowed from the woefully horrible adopted curriculum. The saddest thing is that with our annual testing of students resulting in punitive evaluations of teachers and schools, the pressure is on teachers to conform. The neediest, low performing students are the ones who are least likely to be taught by good teachers who are given the freedom to adapt/create lessons that engage and reach those students. The best teachers in the world can’t succeed when saddled with following “Teacher says” textbooks.
I taught school for 34 years. I witnessed the change from a child-centered education to a standards based education. I abhorred that change. I refused to follow those scripted programs, too. I had a principal who called me a rebel. I finally hit a point where I could do it no longer. I felt it was child abuse. No Child Left Behind left behind the students who were most at risk of failing. Because of this, I retired earlier than I had planned. The powers that be sucked all the joy out of teaching and learning. I can't recommend teaching as a profession anymore. I also tell friends that, if they can afford it, they should find a developmentally appropriate school for their children. One that is not controlled by government funding. My brother did that with his kids and they are incredibly well rounded and compassionate human beings.
It’s not just the Covid protocols. Private and good charter schools work with students who test well, so they have the flexibility to continue with child-centered education, which engages the students. So they learn more and teachers can do more. In the public schools that serve students who are dealing with poverty and other traumas, and as a result test poorly, teachers are under huge pressure to follow the script of whatever text/curriculum has been chosen by administrators far removed from the classroom. That flip side is a depressing vicious spiral downward. We have lost so many good teachers who were able to inspire their students and it’s hard to recommend teaching as a career. The pipeline is very inadequate for our needs. Our local school district has gone through the past several years with 200+ infilled positions. My daughter decided 10 years ago that she wanted to be a teacher and she has been teaching 6th grade math for 5 years. When she was trying to decide on a career I told her I couldn’t recommend it, but I knew she’d be really good at it. She’s beyond good, but gets so frustrated with being told to teach in a way that doesn’t work as well as lessons she developed on her own did. We need our public schools. I wish there were a way to ditch NCLB/ESSA annual testing and go back to the way it was 20 years ago.
I remember theme-based lessons, with a new theme every month, which incorporated all the subjects- reading, writing, math, science history and geography- like ocean animals, that got students excited to learn. We’ve lost those to Language Arts and Math test prep. :’(
Yes, we need tools and attitudes that get students excited to learn, which they come by naturally if we don't stifle and straight jacket it. Bravo to all the teachers in this country who teach with the students at heart, despite legislative attempts to ruin it.
Morning David. For me today stranger danger is David Bowie and Daniel Boone, dang it. Makes me wonder what characters, fictional and real, we are misrepresenting to our children today. And it also made me think about the literally embarrassing display of grown adults over Dr. Seuss. I will never forget the Fox replaying of McCarthy reading Green Eggs and Ham like it was a requiem. Cancel culture, my foot.
I am thinking about what is it like for these children who are getting the constant messages of anger and fear? Toxic. I suppose some probably have the ability to end up thinking for themselves but for others, the inclusion in the tribe outweighs everything, and the cycle continues.
This morning's paper has a story that is appalling. This rich couple in Tampa has decided that the Catholic school they donated to is too "woke" and they want their donation back. The most offensive thing is that they mention a letter from the former school head that supported things like inclusivity, sensitivity, supporting LGBTQ students etc., all Catholic social justice issues. They want this school to stop being sensitive to their students. It will be interesting to see what happens. If rich parents control what is taught in school we are all in very dangerous territory: https://tampabaytimes-fl.newsmemory.com/?publink=28df68517_1345e38
I have an 18 year old who explains that his crowd wants to tear everything down and start again. They see the current world and feel they have no future. Many wonder why they don’t just play all day and ignore any responsibilities. They’re being forced into learning lies at school, watching climate change destroy a habitual earth and politicians encouraging a base they’ve lied to to go out and murder people in our Capitol then claim it was a tourist visit.
They don’t feel safe going to concerts or fairs because there’s always someone with a gun. They don’t want to be on an airplane because there’s no escape from violence.
In other words, they don’t see a future. It’s hard to convince them there is something good to look forward to.
Yes I get that’s what you were thinking. But do you wonder if those kids have the same thoughts and feelings? My grandson convinced a kid in an ultra conservative household to look at the other side and he voted Democrat. His sister was already a Democrat voter and he’d heard plenty of arguments at home but was still going to do what his parents said. Mine took his ballot and book and did loads of research. I was really impressed. Each proposition and office was considered extremely carefully. Now if I could get him to apply that to his college classes!
Imagine being in a conservative home and terrified of gun violence, afraid to speak up. Imagine the pressure to conform to these outrageous conspiracy theories when you know it’s all wrong.
I was quickly going through comment after I had posted that. I saw a comment as I scrolled and said who is talking about David Bowie? It was me. Ha! I posted a reference to Ziggy Stardust and corrected it. Thank you for senses of humor on this forum! Thanks, Judy!
Well said, sir. And true, the desire to fight for and die for something you believe in is not peanuts. I choose to choose my defense of right more carefully.
As evening approached and a mighty storm of rain, fog and high humidity played on, I finally read your psalm of boyhood to enlightenment in America. David, it was enchanting and dramatic from Davey Crockett to Dan Patrick. Yes, even to end, when you questioned whether 'the good people of the great State of Texas lost their marbles'?, you stayed young until asking more serious and horrific questions about where we may be headed. You are one of the people that historians will find to tell future generations about how it was in America on July 8, 2021. Many thanks.
Rest assured, Dan Patrick and Gregg Abbott are not among the "good people" of Texas. They are by far among the worst. When you add the crook AG, Paxton to the mix, you have a nest of "politicians" who are nothing short of damaged goods and just as disgustingly autocratic as TFG. BTW, I really enjoyed your reminiscing! More, please!
There's honest and dishonest. Honest history is a search for truth, a search that is never complete, and a truth that is never fixed. Dishonest history is the creation of myth to live in the place of truth, for the purpose that truth never be known.
It is very similar to science vs. religion. To me, that is the fundamental conflict of our time.
Dishonest history is the removal of documents from the public eye so history is left muted. Stalin. Anne Applebaum wrote in "Gulag" how difficult it was to find any documentation of the numbers who perished in the famine in Russia.
In the Soviet Union people withdrew into their nuclear families, as soon as housing in individual apartments allowed them to.
It was and often remains hard to retrace kith and kin or know their fate because fear cut through all social ties. Memories were hidden and often died with those who held them.
As heirs to Stalin's NKVD, Putin and today's FSB goons who rule (and ruin) the roost in today's Russia systematically persecute Memorial, the organization devoted to tracing the burial sites of the dictator's innumerable victims and placing names and portrait photos above mass Graves.
If we are foolish enough to fail to defend our hard-won democratic institutions, all of us may end up like Russians, as the playthings of deluded, greed-driven, incompetent and utterly irrelevant psychotics.
America is not yet quite clear of an attempt to install just such a regime. And there's a worldwide infestation on our hands. This, at a time when we face real issues of unprecedented gravity and painful complexity.
There's a lot on here today about those throughout the years who destroy the documentation of historical events so that their 'dishonest history' would gain credibility. It is the stock in trade of today's Republican Party. Believers in the "Big Lie" are no better than those who deny the deaths in the Gulag referred to above, the evils of slavery in this country and of course, the Holocaust. History is on the battlefield.
One with facts, one with bullshit. There is no mention in the Egyptian records (which are amazingly complete) of there ever being any slave class in Egypt that would be the Israelites, there is no mention of the plagues - which certainly would have merited mention being as incredible as they are described as being. In fact, the entire Jewish "claim" to Israel is based on a non-factual myth. Most of the rest of Genesis was lifted directly out of Chaldean culture and creation mythology by the Israelite priests during the Babylonian captivity when they were trying to create a "written history." The Bible is fictional bullshit from "In the beginning" to "the end."
Interesting when quantum physics is teaching us that no scientific experiment gives absolute facts as they are always influenced at least by the presence of the researcher........and of the absolute impossibility of totally fixing any point in space and time.
But TC let’s think fictional in a positive way like amazingly creative myth making that humans needed to create to make sense of life and that still works in places to light our way.
The God I believe in isn’t insulted or threatened by opinions like yours or mine - or by anything, for that matter. The God I believe in intended for the development of brains with which to not only regulate our bodily functions but to think. Thinking is neutral until it’s not.
IMO God and religion are not the same. Much like Stonehenge is not the sun or the bent tree is not the wind.
God is the creator and living presence of all that is. Religion is the human effort to understand and codify the unknowable. And historically religion was and is used to control behavior.
Our human need to control what we do not understand leads us astray again and again.
A cuppa would be lovely. We keep trying to reduce this gorgeous, complex world into binary choices. We’ve even created a new language out of binary coding. We are such foolish creatures. And still, I’m so deeply grateful for it all.
To me, the Abrahamic religions (The 3 biggies always at war with each other) look an awful lot like a rewriting of what they call Greek Mythology. Jehovah is a twin bother of Zeus, supposedly making man out of clay, giving him some autonomy, insisting he worship Zeus or get hit by lightning bolts then sent to Hades. Zeus also meddles in the affairs of mortals, even having sex with them and making demi-gods (Perseus or Jesus). If copyright existed millennia ago, there would be one good case for infringement.
No they are not the only source. Archeological digs in the Mediterranean area are a concrete source of data to either confirm or deny biblical information.
Not always to confuse or mystify but to offer an understandable ideological structure for feeling included and have hope. Sometimes religion is simply fascist.
Others don't need it, go further, go deeper in their search...and are not necessarily happier but keep looking.
Within the limits of what we consider the universe, beyond which our knowlege is sketchy, science seeks to verify purported truths through tools such as observation, experience, evidence and experimentation. Religion seeks to verify purported truths through faith alone, independent of such tools, one of which is the study of history.
Like many things, the term “religion” means different things to different people and tribes. I prefer St. James’s definition. “Religion is caring for widows and orphans” and interpret “widows and orphans” to have a broader meaning than simply widows and orphans.
I think James was making the point, to the First Century Church, that true religion is less about control and conformity, and more about consideration towards and caring for others - particularly those in need. At the time, if not still, that was a radical idea.
A pity about the second one, however much sense it may seem to make when we look around us.
I'm just thinking aloud rather clumsily, but perhaps much of what we call "science" is concerned with the search for and development of tools to enable us better to understand (and so control and exploit) externals, including -- in the case of life sciences -- even our own body/ mind, reified for the exercise, extracted, separated, reduced for purposes of study and analysis to something like a pathologist's tissue slides.
What I'm getting at here is many scientists' belief that reality is in effect an object, one that can only yield to investigation by the scientific method. A belief that is a useful mental lever, yet fails to address the fact that it is grounded in an intrinsically unreal abstraction: dualism.
I am not complaining about the precious work of, say, pathologists, and medical science in general, to which I personally owe my very life over the past decade and more!
Rather, I'm getting at the fact that so much of our current science and technology no longer has any prosthetic function but is divorced from its onlie begetters, mankind, places screens between us and reality, feeds delusions and the destruction of our relationship with ourselves, with our environment, with life itself, and our consequent endangering of not only our own but all species.
Meanwhile, it is true that much of what we see as "religion" is a dense forest of road signs, often pointing in the craziest directions, utterly at variance with the way shown by the founders. A hindrance, even a danger for wayfarers.
The search for truth may face us again and again with confusion and paradoxes, yet there's no intrinsic conflict between the natural sciences and the fundamental purpose of the religions (as opposed to the spurious purposes, hypocrisy, social control, to which misled misleaders have always subjected them).
The root question:
WHO, WHAT AM I?
And those (like "What do I think I'm doing here? What AM I doing here?") that follow directly from it.
For so long as we are unable or unwilling to probe those questions, regardless of our notions about "science", "religion" or anything else,
can there be any hope for us and the wonder in which we live, Earth?
“Your question is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.”
I have to say, I just love everything about that man. He would have a few good things to say on this forum. And about what’s going on in this country that he became a citizen of in 1940.
I read a novel about his wife, "The Other Einstein", by Marie Benedict that painted him in a not very flattering light. You might not love quite everything about him after reading it. Fiction, yes, based in a fair amount of research and fact.
Beth, My admiration for Einstein prompted me to learn about 'The Other Einstein', the book that you mentioned. As you pointed out it is historical fiction. The book received scant attention from major publications with books reviews. Readers seemed to enjoy it, yet some were disappointed by the liberties taken by the author. Here's are a couple of examples: 'Benedict's novel carries a story line that isn't consistent with historical research (Her author's note is built on ideas like "maybe," "perhaps," and "we don't know.") Were the allegations true, it would be a whopper.' Another wrote: 'I mostly enjoyed it while I was reading it - a bit of a slow pace at time - somewhat redundant at times. I love historical novels in that they can take you to another time and place. But in reading the author's supplemental bit at the end, I was really disappointed that she took SO MUCH license with the story.' Excuse my caution about the book, Beth, it was in defense of Albert Einstein.
No worries, Fern. Her schtick is to write about the unknown brilliant and amazing women beside the famous men we know about. I fell down quite a rabbit hole learning about Mrs. Einstein about whom not enough is known. I'm sure there's a grain of truth in her stories but we'll never know for sure. Of course we can point to the facts but not what they're relationship was truly like.
Glorious in it's simplicity and wisdom. Mystery, patterns and connections conveyed by Einstein as from a child and posted from kimceann. Kudos to the trio.
Your question, Peter, brings to mind the same question asked of the zen monk, “Who are you?”, and of course he replied, “I don’t know.” In the Ultimate Truth of Buddhist philosophy, there is no answer, because “everything” is a delusion of a human’s mind. But then in Relative Truth, there are answers to any questions. I believe the truest answer is an attempt to live in non-duality, to the see the ‘other’ as oneself, as are all objects of all of our senses .....
The colon surgeon asked me immediately before surgery, while I was drifting away on the operating table, “Who are you?” to confirm my identity. I replied “In the Ultimate Truth, I do not know, but in this Relative World I am Frederick ...” After a successful operation, and through a universe of causes and conditions, I am able to happily relay this story.
I particularly like your last part. If we are unwilling to look within and ask those questions, we are not being honest. And when we are not honest, our "stories" take control of us, usually not for good. The hurt, shame, anger, and hate many walk around with are a result of these stories on playback loop. The more they are repeated, the "truer" they become. And all the while, those emotions are not being addressed, just reinforced, ultimately becoming toxic. It's a shame that so many walk around wounded when they could be happier. And we all pay the price.
Thank you, Kim, for that highly pertinent clarification
of our personal responsibility.
We each came into this world naked (and noisily) and we'll be leaving it stripped of all those delusions we love to clothe ourselves in and strut around showing off how important they are -- in other words how important we are -- all that tawdry "identity" stuff, status, gender, "race", profession,
the list goes on and on and on; and in the end it's all quite irrelevant.
Isn't human life a chance to free ourselves of conditioning and move away from all that we are not... towards what we really are?
( Pardon any failures of expression, I'm writing in the midst of phone calls and 3 generations of family...)
It reminds me of really annoyed me when dealing with academics in different Psychology Departments here in Paris and elsewhere. The question they ask of the human is always what, how and when all empirically verifiable....and ever so rarely why which requires a great deal of introspection and is always entirely subjective. Both are "science" but the latter is fundamentally about your question, Peter, "Who and what am I?"
Not at all! Empiricism to my mind is an extremely limited way of looking at man and the forces of the universe and manages to "explain" so little. I am far from believing that what we can measure is all that counts and the rest is what the scientist might call pejoratively "subjectrive", quite the contrary.
Good morning Ralph. I always am interested in the direction of your perspective of HCR’s letters. And certainly today, from what I read, it has warmed up our “teapot” of a forum. I always have thought that religion emerged as a comfort zone for spirit to accept the unemotional tenets and truths of science. So that correction of human endeavor contrary to abundance of Earth’s resources can proceed peacefully. What a mess we have made of it. The “vs” inserted between the two instead of “both and”. An extremely fundamental conflict.
Thanks, Ralph. You have reminded me of that Oklahoma Representative (or is he a Senator?) who brought a snowball into Congress and proceeded to tell folks climate change didn't exist.
How could any of us have imagined a time in the U.S. when government officials would use their authority to suppress knowledge of what happened in the past? It's like the Soviets revising history to make it all glorious.
What's next? Book burnings? Or, if Republicans like Abbot ever gain enough power, the jailing of historians who dispel myths? Journalists who criticize GOP politicians? I fear we've only seen a glimmer of their potential immorality and corruption.
Sad to say, but we should be able to imagine it, because it happens all the time. To some degree, the winners write history; the rest of us--especially the historians among us--need to watch and think about when and how to "set the record straight."
When I was in fifth grade, in the mid-1950s, I was interested in the Civil War. My dad, a mechanical engineer who among other things designed steel mill equipment, was packing before taking a business trip to Birmingham, Alabama. He asked me if I would like a present from "down South," and I said I would. What he brought home for me--a sixth grade American history textbook from a Birmingham public school--was at first confusing, and went on to burn in me like a slow explosives fuse. The Civil War (The War Between the States) was, it seemed, quite different from what I had learned in an elementary school on Long Island . . .
So, back to the winners I mentioned above. They write histories, and sometimes the losers tell Big Lies. Fortunately, we have Professor HCR :)
I did have a great dad. But I should clarify . . . I'm not a historian. I certainly admire historians, though. Especially HCR. What a treasure she is, and how fortunate we all are.
You sound a lot like my Dad. He was a student of history his entire life who worked as a surveyor, Army Sergeant, cab driver and meteorologist. I asked him once (when I was about 10) why he would reread several books regularly ("The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" was one of them; I don't remember the others off hand, but there were many on Roman history). He said "There are some things that are sound and foundational and there are other things that must never happen again. We need to know them both."
Nance, you are too right, alas. As an historian who has spent a career revising the "canon" of historical interpretation I can safely say that the white male elites have created a discourse that obscures rather than reveals the past. History is not "what happened," it is the process by which people interpret the sources they consume. There is a tremendous amount of blinkered viewing of the artifacts of the past, which has led to a significant blurring of what might actually have been going on. Historians today are challenging the canons of previous generations of overwhelmingly white male historians who have dominated the presentation of the past. This has led to a reckoning--and a lot of controversy. If you want an example, the struggles of Professor Nicole Hannah Jones combatting racism and sexism in the Board of Trustees (almost all male, almost all white--appointed not elected by the governor) at UNC presents a stark one. https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article252593038.html
Yes, alas. Right now in my own house I am surrounded by white male elites. Life is emotionally touch and go, so sometimes (like in the middle of the night when I wrote) I simply take a break from thinking about them :). But you have nailed it, Linda. Thank you! And thanks for the NHJ reference!
I think someone should make a photo gallery of enormous black and white photos of every injured Capitol Police Officer. Over 140 injured. Their names, years on the force, and a quote about why they wanted to police our Capitol. All Trump followers in my mind have become zombies. They are brain washed and can’t hear truth any more. Maybe they can see it if it’s in their faces. The officers would have to be willing of course. If I could do it myself, I’d make a book and give proceeds to the officers.
My newest idea for a novel is to have a lone sabateur take out Fox News somehow. Without injuring any people. How great would that be? Really disable the news channel itself. Calling all hackers!
Yes they are like zombie cultists and those kinds are very difficult to reach. The trials of the Capitol Police touch my heart deeply because against that mob they didn’t have a chance. They suffered greatly and they are such a dignified group of public servants.
Dana, I was referring to Jeanne’s “call for all hackers”. I thought she framed her idea for her novel idea and the lone saboteur main character in a lighthearted way. I was in no way mocking the truth of the GOP’s treasonous behavior. I’m sorry this upset you. Please accept my apology.
Jeanne Doyle, I listen to the novelists and the artists - they FORETELL our future. I think this is a great idea for a story. I did NOT know 140 Capitol Police were injured. And the trump followers as zombies, absolutely. They don't think for themselves anymore - if they ever did. I think the officers would be willing to have their stories told! As for the lone saboteur taking out Fox News - wow!!! Without injuring people? Destroying equipment would be great, though. It's Rupert Murdoch who has driven this entire country to this point. ALSO he's a complete global warming denier and has driven that story into the DISASTER we're in now. But he has a whole goddamn empire.
I think the GOP is almost beyond salvation. I hope you are right because a country can always use at least two dissenting parties but nowadays the GOP it’s an authoritarian force serving the very rich, not of this country but the international very rich such as McConnell’s father in law or Putin. Or of course all those others my ignorance doesn’t let me know of.
There are many Republican voters that do not even recognize their representation of their party around the country. They do not agree that only opposition can be an agenda. I just don’t want them to sit at home in 2022 and not vote. I want them to vote against the lies. And I believe they can be convinced to do so at this particular time without changing to another party.
Florida has its own Lauren Boebert candidate...Anna Paulina Luna...whom Newt Gingrich has now endorsed. That should tell you everything you need to know about Republicans. In case you are not familiar with Looney Luna, she ran against Charlie Crist in the last election. She routinely poses with assault rifles....the whole nine yards. Luckily that district is solidly blue, but you never know what could happen. If you are in district 13, encourage everyone you know to not vote for this crazy person. https://floridapolitics.com/archives/439544-newt-gingrich-endorses-anna-paulina-luna-in-cd-13-race/
This is not the first time in our history that a governmental body has tried to silence educators….
“Jan. 21, 1925 – Rep. Butler introduces legislation in the Tennessee House of Representatives calling for a ban on the teaching of evolution. The proposed law, known as the Butler bill, would prohibit the teaching of "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals."”
I learned much later in life that history we studied in school (school for me was the late 1950s and 1960s) was edited. Sometimes for brevity, often to present the story in a certain light. Books I read on my own opened my eyes to this. Such as “Slaughterhouse 5”, by Vonnegut. Or “Johnny Get Your Gun”, by Trumbo. There were others, too many to list here (often about the unheroic, brutal side to war, it seems that war history is often gilded and elided). But probably the most eye-opening book for me was “A People’s History of the US”, by Zinn. My public school history books (and teachers) left a lot out, it seem. So much of history is not told, intentionally. Dangerous stuff, this history.
Yes. Book burnings and those types of things are what come next. I believe book burning types of stunts have been performed already over the last 5 or so years anyway. What is interesting to me is that all the hostility to education, expertise, correcting the of the historical record in addition false flag flying is very much the same as the cancel culture that the right disdains in left leaning citizens. Our politics has serious mental health issues and I don't think it will go away even if citizens were happy with their racial and socio-economic positions. It is just too addicting to hate and fight and it is too entertaining to watch politicians act out reality TV scripts. FOX News is truly a form of entertainment for many people and facts, truth and details don't matter. Book burnings are exciting, cathartic and dramatic. Politics is the new “opiate of the masses”.
@Robert Allen this is all a general example of the unconscious psychological process of "projection." In fact, I'm going to make a sweeping statement that is probably untrue in the small, but true enough in the large to be useful. Every conspiracy theory and odious or criminal act shouted out by the Republicans, is in fact something THEY are doing. It's why they believe in it: it IS true, and they know, because they are doing it. They just flip it around and point at others.
A cabal of wealthy, cannibalistic pedophiles and sex perverts? Can anyone say Jeff Epstein?
A government takeover by tyrants? Right there in front of us.
Fake news? Plain as day.
Cancel culture? Yep.
I think if we simply remove the "who" from their hysteria, and concentrate on the "what," we'll find there's more truth in it than not. Certainly more truth than I am comfortable with.
One thing humans have known, from at least the time of the Roman Empire, is that if you destroy the access to knowledge the population can be more easily controlled. It is a standard method of "culture cleansing."
It is why the Goths burned the Library of Celsus in Ephesus in 262 CE. Why the Ottoman Turks destroyed the library of Constantinople. It's why the Nazis destroyed Warsaw. It's why ISIS destroyed heritage sites in Iraq and Syria.
It is why Republicans are obsessed with perpetuating lies.
It's why the IRA in 1922 set fire to the Public Record Office in Dublin. It's why the Venetians used the Parthenon as an ammo dump and exploded it in their wars against the Turks in the 17th century (1687 to be exact). It's why the Nazis torched the Neapolitan Archives in 1945. It's why the US Air Corps bombed Monte Cassino. The people who do propaganda are on both sides.
Terrorsist groups that verge on criminal "business" gangs also blow up banks and tax offices so that they don't have to repay loans or pay taxes on any legit earnings from the businesses that they have "sequestered" as the documentation has gone up in smoke.....i'm thinking particularly of Corsican "Independentistas" as it happens every year.
No. It's not the same thing. Having Confederate monuments in public spaces is akin to Germany allowing Nazi monuments in public spaces. Removing Confederate monuments is not a cultural cleansing. Unless you consider white supremacy, racism, enslavement, sedition, and treason to be culture that should be celebrated.
Having taught U.S. history for 27 years, and as a current historic preservationist, I find Dr. Richardson to be a beacon of truth. I am deeply grateful for her voice.
Never have truer words been spoken since the GOP has linked itself to the most heinous of lies. Thank you for always speaking truth to power in such subtle, yet powerful of ways. They lead to dialogue, critical thinking, and in-depth assessments of past, present and future realities. You have my eternal gratitude for inevitably shining a bright light on what matters.
"An inaccurate picture of what creates change means that people cannot make good decisions about the future. They are at the mercy of those who are creating the stories. Knowledge is indeed power.
So the destruction of accurate history is about more than schools. It’s about self-determination. It’s about having the freedom to make good decisions about your life.
It’s about the very things that democracy is supposed to stand for."
Good morning friend Rowshan! HCR’s wallapalooza two sentences to me this morning are quoted by you above—“An inaccurate picture of what creates change means that people cannot make good decisions about the future. They are at the mercy of those creating the stories.”
I stopped reading for a bit after that sentence. I have a concise and clear answer now to a question that has bugged me daily. Why is it that the former president has so many clinging to his coattails still? And it’s not just his supposed base of the “common rural working man”. I saw few of those at his Sarasota rally last weekend.
They are faux slaves themselves, so to speak, at the mercy of their storyteller. No wonder the fealty. The former has re-instituted the institution of “owning” with his sidekick Fox News Channel.
So, HCR’s letter this morning will serve as an “aha!” and a boost for me as I continue my messaging on all fronts to preserve freedom going into 2022 elections.
While seeming insignificant to some, this is such an eye opener for me. For heaven’s sake, it all comes down to history.
As HCR has noted elsewhere, 40 percent of voters are Independents. The far right is systematically going after them. Our efforts need to be directed at this influenceable middle, not the lost cause disciples, some of whom might eventually come around by the laws of attraction.
I haven’t said the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States since sometime in high school in the early 1960s where I protested saying it by rote each morning in class. IT IS NOTHING BUT LIES.
Also, to their credit, no one in my St. Louis County high school tried to discipline me for that like so many schools ignorant of the law have tried to do since. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1943 that it violates students’ First Amendment rights to force them to recite a “patriotic” pledge.
In 2002, I even wrote a dissention for not pledging allegiance to a national lie. I updated it in 2015. It seems I was a part of a critical history movement before ever hearing about it.
Questions of Allegiance
Rob Boyte
June 26, 2015
Why pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, or to the Republic for which it stands, that allowed slavery until 1863, denied women the vote until 1920, segregated its armed forces by race until 1948, persecuted political minorities throughout the 1950s, and into the 21st Century still denied full rights to homosexuals to serve in its military until 2011 or to reap the benefits of marriage until 2015?
One nation, indivisible would not disfranchise its Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists or others who do not accept the archaic concept of a "god" by forcing them to read "in god we trust" on every coin of a supposed secular state. "We" do not all agree that ours is a nation "under god" and for the religious majority to assume such is a most divisive insult.
With Liberty and Justice for all, except of course those too poor to afford a slick lawyer in the court system, too black to be presumed innocent by the police or too in love with someone of the same gender.
I love this. My own rebellion to the pledge began in the third grade when I stopped saying the words "under God". I subsequently added "for the majority of the people who can pay for it" at the end.
I did a lot of theatrics with my protests, sometimes standing with the Nazi (or Roman) salute. Got some about 6 other students involved and formed the Association of Secret Students (for the acronym). Sophomoric stuff – we were adolescents. My mom was not proud and once said she wished I was like other kids. She had no idea what was to come later. :)
Eventually, by the 1990s she did. But, before that was the “sex, drugs & rock-n-roll” of the ‘70s and my “black woman” of 1980, which was 2 years of non-communication. But she apologized to Brenda & me for the racism and (with my sister’s help) we actually visited each other. I think I was born to her for her enlightenment. :)
I feel that in many ideas we hold on to, there is the element of “never forget this” that forms how we see the world. To our sorrow, it also works with maintaining “Big Lies”.
Just a short reply, I support the ACLU and also Freedom from Religion, who work to keep religion out of government. I have seen recently, some polling that said less than 50% of respondents said they were "religious". A change that is hopeful in my book.
I love this too. Just want to comment on this: "...like so many schools ignorant of the law have tried to do since." I'm not sure they were ignorant of the laws.
Whether they know the law or just refuse to abide by it, the ACLU (of which I have been a card-carrying member since 1986) takes them to court. Like the 15-year-old girl, Mary Kait Durkee who sat during the pledge in a San Diego school in 1998 because she did not believe in a god. School tried punishing her & ACLU took them to federal court. I wrote her a letter of support as many others did and she wrote back that she appreciated it. I admire the few principled, outspoken young ppl who take a stand (or sit-down) for civil-rights.
Or those at sports venues who kneel during the National Anthem to show respect for the ideals but point out how far we’ve fallen short. For all the right wing complaints, I have yet to see a camera pan over the crowds in the vendor lines to show me anyone who turns in line to face the flag and put hand over heart. They seem to all just continue to peruse the menu or chatter away to each other. Hrrumpf!
We pledge allegiance to the ideals represented by the flag and to the republic for which it stands, to its potential for justice not to the injusticesw it perpetrates. Without ideals to aspire to, all that’s left is cynicism and nihilism. See the GOP for what THAT looks like.
It's interesting how "inaccurate history" can have a major effect. My three books on the Korean War demonstrated to me - and it appears I demonstrated to my readers - that the "forgotten war" (which the Korean War is) never got real study afterwards, and that most of the "facts" about the war people who have read anything about it believe are really just unexamined wartime propaganda, buttressed by "facts" that were created by "cooking the books" to the point they were limp spaghetti. This was particularly true with loss rates. The Air Force only listed an airplane as "lost in combat" if it actually went down in a battle. If it was shot up and crashed on the way home, that was "engine failure" or the old go-to, "pilot error", both of which made the lost "non-operational." If the airplane got back to base but was so badly damaged it never flew again, that was also a "non-operational" loss. If it crashed on landing because it was so damaged from combat, that was always put to "pilot error" (since the guy was usually dead and therefore unable to argue otherwise). Then, conversely, they claimed "victories" over the other side that had no connection to reality. The MiG-15 was a very tough airplane, and it was hard to shoot it down with the machine guns an F-86 was armed with (which is why after the war they went to 20mm cannons). So they determined that if on the gun camera film examined later, they could count a certain number of "hits", then that airplane most assuredly went down afterwards if not during the fight directly. The end result of all this hocus-pocus was the famous "10:1" victory ratio. In reality, the overall victory ratio - when the Soviet loss records (they also cooked the books, but not so badly) became available, it was found (as it has been ever since 1915 when the first pilot shot down another airplane) that they had overclaimed by what some of us now call "the historical standard" of 300% of actual losses. Interestingly, that "10:1" victory ratio was held up during Vietnam as proof the air war there wasn't going well - when I talked to Vietnam era pilots and told them the real loss rate in Korea was about the same as what they had done, some didn't want to believe that.
So there you have a very "esoteric" bit of historical fallacy - it had a major effect on coming to an understanding of what exactly had happened in Korea, which incorrect info there led to incorrect analysis in Vietnam (and not just of air losses, but of how/why certain political alliances worked or didn't work).
And the "America First" crowd is just as unhappy to discover the real facts about the Korean War as they are to learn the "1619 project." As the negative reviews of my work demonstrate.
And it's not just the Korean War. My uncle was killed in WWII. He was training a student pilot who crashed the plane and killed them both. The official death says "non-combat related" death. Hmmmm................
TC, I generally find your comments to be both informative and entertaining. But when I google "TC" and/or "Korean War books" and/or "That's Another Fine Mess", I find only Amazon and Laurel and Hardy. Can you give me a hint that might take me to your Korean War books or other writings? THNX!
David and Christian…. Go on Amazon. TC’s fabulous books are there. Thomas McKelvey Cleaver. There are 6 including pre-order on his latest The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club.
I have been reading TCinLA’s substack articles this morning and am considering a subscription but am hesitant because he does not attach his name or credentials to the column the way I have come to expect from being an HCR subscriber.
Oh do subscribe. His blog is such a complement to HCR’s Letters and truly a compliment towards aviation history. TC’s storytelling makes history fascinating.
Absolutely right. Had Big Mac just liberated Seoul and stopped at the 38th parallel at the end of September, things would have been different, but by then McCarthyism was in full swing, and an unwillingness to "roll back" the enemy was "soft on communism," and now a political "third rail." It wasn't crossing the Yalu, it was crossing the 38th Parallel (an easy transposition to make). I go into that in detail in "The Frozen Chosen."
I loved the Dave’s Crockett song as a child and used to sing it over. Thank you for your clear and passionate explanation about why history matters —especially history that is factually based. I had read the review of this new take on the Alamo last Sunday in the NYTIMES book review section. The author and the book received favorable commentary. It’s a shame that the repug powers that be are desperate to appease future repug voters. As a retired teacher and one having been certified to teach high school history— I feel sorry for current history teachers in these backward states trying their best to control what teachers say by politicizing just about everything. Teachers then have to be careful not about passing on knowledge but to make sure they don’t step on toes and stir controversy—especially if they value their jobs. The biggest loss is to the kids who miss a rich, controversial history lesson that gets them thinking how interesting history is.
Good morning Liz. Having been in public education for so long, I remain oddly neutral about the teacher unions. But they are fiercely gearing up for what looks to be protecting teachers against censorship by state legislatures. And teachers (naively perhaps, but I’m totally with them on it) are not only rolling their eyes at the “new rules” (e.g. about Critical Race Theory) but also reminding those worried that it’s not their first time at the censorship rodeo. I can remark definitively from my own experience that flying under the radar is quite the secret adage amongst free thinking teachers to keep thinking exactly that….free.
Unions are interesting critters. My experience with the union that I belonged to was that it helped to keep our management in line with respect to work hours, following termination procedures, and employee representation. I know that police unions in other parts of the country really take some of the things like qualified immunity and some others (which escape me in the fog of not enough coffee) to the furthest extreme. My mother in law was a teacher whose administration did not like her or what/how she taught to her students (middle school English) to the degree that it was OK for teachers to drink coffee (which she detested) but she could drink neither Coke or ice tea from a coffee cup... Her union backed her strongly, and she was able to have the caffeinated beverage of her choice, disguised in a coffee cup.
Indeed Liz. True in any job, but amplified in public schooling because there are so many “interest groups” which can and do get passionately involved around particular issues while remaining generally AWOL about key, longstanding issues (because those are complex and take too much sustained work to adapt or alter). Leaving unions aside for the moment—though they are powerful actors in conflicts that arise—I would argue that teachers’ best allies in curricular struggles over disputed “ideologies” are their administrators. If your department head, person responsible for curriculum development (often a Vice-Principal), and/or Principal back up your approaches on contested issues, you are free to use your judgment and expertise.
And history teachers have one major advantage over other humanities disciplines: written records. There can be equal hue and cry from the offended, but unlike choices of literature, a history teacher can say “Well, this is what they said and/or institutionalized at the time.” So, in the American History units on the Civil War and lead-up to it, I cut selections from several Southern states’ declarations of secession—each of which strongly stated that they were leaving the union to defend their way of life based on chattel slavery. FWIW, I also cut and distributed newspaper accounts of John Brown and his Harper’s Ferry raid to different groups, only tagging the selections by newspaper name, city, and party allegiance. The more knowledgeable kids were initially s/w thrown by the facts that the Democratic papers were “the bad guys,” but also noted that the Republican papers (anti-slavery) did everything but deify Brown, who after all aimed for a general insurrection against the government and killed a number of people in the process. My stance was, if you want to learn from how riven the country was at the time—leading to the greatest crisis in our history—here’s the evidence. Plus, it all sent students to primary sources, and (hopefully) improved their abilities to parse and interpret non-fiction prose—a major test-regimen goal. Makes it harder to argue with—though of course some did, which is why the back-up by local educational experts helps a lot.
The other major external factor was (and is) that there are no agreed-upon test hurdles for students’ progress in knowing/using history—for the simple reason that teaching history is always political, and test-authoritarians have so far not managed to marshal sufficient public support (and money) to institutionalize whatever their proposed ideology was.
Second-hand information from someone who had a long relationship with a management-side negotiator. The negotiator loved working with (academic) unions, because of the fact that all of the ire of the union members came down to negotiating with one guy in closed room, who was often neither particularly bright (meaning devious) nor incorruptible. As the management rep, he had a couple of decades of experience, and a stable job working against the unions. When he couldn't bamboozle the union rep, he always had the option of subtle bribery, and whatever agreement they walked out of the room with, was the agreement.
If the union members didn't like it, they could vote out their union rep and threaten to strike again, which was a rinse-and-repeat with a new union rep likely even less experienced than the previous one.
It was an unexpected revelation for me. But it makes sense.
I've never held a job that had a union, so I've had exactly zero first-hand experience with them.
I have a picture of me (barely out of toddlerhood) and one of my brothers wearing our Davy Crockett faux coonskin hats when they were all the rage mid-1950’s. For years, I thought Fess Parker was Davy Crockett! My mother told me that a couple of times in church when the hymn singing began I would belt out in my loudest (and totally off key) child voice, the Disney Davy Crockett song. That was the end of my religious period 😂
His run as Davy Crockett was pretty short, but got him noticed. His sidekick in Davy Crockett was Buddy Ebsen ("Georgie"). They apparently remoulded the television miniseries from the '50s into feature films in the '60s.
"Some scholars theorize that levels of religiosity and cultic affiliation tend to rise in proportion to the perceived uncertainty of an environment. The less control we feel we have over our circumstances, the more likely we are to entrust our fates to a higher power. (A classic example of this relationship was provided by the anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski, who found that fishermen in the Trobriand Islands, off the coast of New Guinea, engaged in more magic rituals the farther out to sea they went.) This propensity has been offered as an explanation for why cults proliferated during the social and political tumult of the nineteen-sixties, and why levels of religiosity have remained higher in America than in other industrialized countries. Americans, it is argued, experience significantly more economic precarity than people in nations with stronger social safety nets and consequently are more inclined to seek alternative sources of comfort."
Actual observations: “”Yes,” he says with a youth pastor’s grin. “Like Scripture.” Every tweet, every misspelling, every typo, every strange capitalization—especially the capitalizations, says Dave—has meaning. “The truth is right there in what the media think are his mistakes. He doesn’t make mistakes.” The message of the shirt to Dave is: Study the layers. “Trump is known as a five-dimension chess player,” Dave says later. And he’s sending us clues. About the Democrats and Ukraine and his plans. “There are major operations going on,” Dave tells me months later, suggesting that Trump is using COVID-19 field hospitals as “a cover” to rescue children from sex trafficking.” From: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/inside-the-cult-of-trump-his-rallies-are-church-and-he-is-the-gospel/amp
I loved my Davy Crocket hat as a child. I remember running free with the other kids in the neighbourhood in the 1950’s, it’s little fake racoon tail flapping in the breeze.
I remember that craze. It came from the tv series. Totally untethered from history. I think of Davy Crocket vaguely in association with Kentucky, and I can't keep him separate from Daniel Boone.
I had my TV on tuned to a channel that broadcasts old shows. One early morning a cartoon show came on. My husband and I were not really paying attention at first. Then after a few minutes we turned to each other to voice our amazement at how violent this episode was. We tuned in to this channel for several days which confirmed our memory that this is what our generation was fed every day...and still is today, it seems.
But I never remember thinking that the behavior I was watching (and enjoying) was something that I should emulate in my own life. Why is that, I wonder.
Good wonderment, Lynell! Such a good question. I also wonder what did Walt Disney know? What did he learn about slavery? Here we all were, sitting in front of that glowing box and absorbing fantasy and not facts. I wish I was an avid reader as a child instead of watching so much TV. Can't go back. Making up for that now, though.
Maybe because in the late 50s/60s our TV watching was minimal and mostly what we heard from our mothers was “Go outside and play.” We we’re not immersed in media instead of reality/nature.
I have to wonder how much of our current gun culture is because that generation has been immersed in media which features violence, not the fantastical dropping of an Acme safe, but TV and video games that show and often glorify violence between humans. When we played outside with neighborhood kids, we learned to not hurt each other and the cowboys and Indians violence was all pretend.
I lived in Seminole County, which is in the Greater Orlando Area, for a number of years. Detest is too polite a word for what I think of Disney. They have an outsized political influence by getting employees elected to County Commissioner positions in Central Florida counties, skirting requirements for eligibility to run. For example, Disney aids an employee in buying a house in the district, financially supports the campaign, and then the Commissioner uses the position to effect Disney's chosen outcome. Commissioner doesn't occupy the home and actually resides near the park. But, as owner of the home, claims residency and thus eligibility to run. Local residents suffer Disney's tyranny in a thousand paper cuts. Disney was able to thwart efforts for high speed rail between Orlando and Tampa because there would be no stop at Disney.
A long time ago now, but Disney was thwarted by Virginians when they wanted to build a park a few miles from the Manassas Battlefield Park in Haymarket. I was and am so glad it never happened. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney%27s_America
Very minor point, but I think the association was with Tennessee. "Born on the mountaintop in Ten-nes-see/Raised in the woods when he was only three/Davy, Davy Crockett/King of the wild frontier.
That’s really funny, Stuart. But I then remember living in Leesburg VA and playing with Excalibur ( a board ), and my poor brother and sister forced to play knights.
And then, after Star Wars franchise, our children picked up light sabres and cowboys and indians were replaced by the Rebel Alliance and the Empire starring Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.
Now their children compare Darth Vader and the Emperor to who?
I’m grateful my kids were Harry Potter kids, running around with sticks for wands and making potions out of leaves and berries and dirt! Not that they didn’t love Star Wars; they did. But Harry Potter dominated their play.
IMHO, Russell Vought and his Center for Renewing America pose a clear and present danger to our society. I hate how patriotism and Christianity have become weaponized by lies.
IMO, it is a dangerous precedent when there are barriers put in place that limit the assessment and discussion of historical events within factual context.
And of course now the document “Model-School-Board-Language-to-Ban-CRT-SD-HCS-edits-1” has also become part of the historical record of original sources.
I grew up in Texas. I had at least two doses of Texas History. And I can say with almost 100% certainty that retaining the institution of human enslavement was never cited as the reason for the Texian rebellion. I was an adult before I realized that Texas didn't join the Confederacy to "protect states' rights," it joined to protect the right to own human beings. The whitewashing of Texas history has been going on for a very long time.
Perhaps I'm wrong about this, but isnt "states' rights" the right of states to have its own "peculiar institutions" like slavery? And I commented recently on a different site about the run-up to the War of Secession, where the southern states were angry with the northern states because they did not enforce the southern states' (property) rights when slaves escaped across the state boundaries by aiding in the recapture and return of "their" slaves.
I think "states' rights" is just code for allowing, supporting, and enforcing slavery.
I so very worry about the public education system of today. It has been a very long time since people have relied on the wealth of education that teachers achieve to educate our young. I remember when No Child Left Behind was enacted and the sudden swing to hold teachers and schools solely responsible and accountable for the deficits and differences in children's achievement. Poverty, addictions, abuse, trauma, lack of parenting skills or mental health struggles were never taken into account for children struggling with their education. The focus became educating the child in how to take the tests. Providing wall references and teaching them how to locate the information they needed while testing. Not that we teach them the actual information on these charts and reference guides, but how to use them. Every morning we had 40 minutes of remediation groups. Children assigned to a teacher for their area deficits. No plans or materials, but fix their problems. Then in the afternoon there was a block of time with purchased materials to learn to take a test. Social studies and science were watered down time wise to put these new "classes" on the schedule. Then we went further and the government "punished" schools and districts and individual educators that didn't match the achievement standards and improve every year. Sadly, for many schools, this regime still exists. And, just like law enforcement, the funding and now emphasis isn't there to provide adequate assistance for family dysfunction and chaos that may be contributing to increase hunger, inadequate supplies and clothing, exhaustion, illness, aggression, developmental delays, and other struggles kids bring into school on a daily basis. All these escalating problems do adversely effect achievement outcomes. And, now it is frustrating to know that many states will be enacting and monitoring what and how teachers present lessons to their students in order to maintain the white man's lies and propaganda to new generations. And it's all based on ignorance. You can't tell me that these very vague and empty guidelines are based on research or the good of the children. It is another way to control the actions of educators in teaching critical thinking skills, facts, and such. Textbooks are bad enough. The amount of errors in grades k-12 textbooks is astounding. I have concluded watching the last decade or so that we are scaring the sh!t out of Republicans with the exploded emphasis on controlling EVERYTHING.
This is like reading the report of a combat veteran and I want to thank you for your service. I hope you are able to apply your deep understanding of the issues of education, which are fundamental to social change—and your feelings of worry—to making your voice heard in support with kindred spirits.
Hello Christi McG…. As I read your very illuminating report, I also thought something when I read this: “Poverty, addictions, abuse, trauma, lack of parenting skills or mental health struggles were never taken into account for children struggling with their education.”
I was in several roles of administration in my district county and participated in a wealth of planning at Title I schools. The elements you mention are among the many things the planning groups considered when restructuring the instruction and grouping to reflect addressing the particular needs of children from homes in generational or situational poverty. We interpreted the NCLB tenets to do exactly that. Know the needs and the resources of these quite often very resilient children. Our eye on assessment was that it is integral to achievement but must be used to drive instruction. We were very careful in our hiring practices looking for teachers with the stamina to work in a Title I School because it is not easy, though very rewarding and such a passionate endeavor. You know what I thought after reading your report? I wish Christi had interviewed at a school where I sat on the hiring committee. She would have received all yes votes.
My applause to your dedication to teaching. Even within the most ill prepared school at meeting real needs of children, there are teachers like you that reach many. I always liked to believe that one teacher in a thriving relationship with one student was like throwing a smooth pebble in a pond and creating concentric ripples that enlarged the size of the pebble’s splash greatly.
Spread the word of what good education looks like. Blessings!
Thank you for the kind words, Christine. I spent 7 years in a behavioral program for struggling elementary children. The next 8 years in a low income rural school. Then the remaining years at a suburban wealthy predominately white school. I had many struggles due to the lack of concern for children who walked in the doors with heavy loads making it a struggle to participate fully and achieve. Then when the testing emphasis hit, but was made much worse. We had one social worker for 700 kids. Special ed had one very part time social worker and a part time psychologist who were to assess and write reports for IEP's and triennial evaluations. No real help for struggling families. After retirement I spent 6 years volunteering in a Title 1 school, and the difference was amazing. Very dedicated teachers, and wonderfully supportive principals, and support staff who worked hard to work with individual needs of kids. All kids ate good healthy food for breakfast, snack, and lunch with backpacks of nourishment for weekends. Even their discipline system was something actually valuable. This was my best experience in all the years of teaching because it is how an educational system works in my opinion. I thank you for all you have done and do for kids in your district.
Thanks HRC for this Letter, one of your best IMHO.
I remember the Alamo. Or perhaps I should say, "I remember the Alamo myth." When I was 5 years old and living in Seattle with my parents and older sister, "Davey Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier" was a big deal. I had a (fake) coonskin cap which I only took off on days when I thought my Mickey Mouse hat (the big ears were fake, too) was more the thing. My cap pistol was real, however. Very cool! We did not have a TV yet, but our next door neighbors did, so we could keep up with all the larger-than-life events of the Fess Parker/Disney serial version of Davey's life that became intertwined with my yard play and, no doubt, helped plant the seeds of my interest in US history and put me on the road to unquestioning acceptance of many American myths that even now are wrapped up in my understanding of patriotism (which I define as "love of country").
Of course, Davey Crockett (my Dad had always called me Davey, too) got most of my attention for only a year, and then we were off to Pittsburgh PA and my heroes became Roberto Clemente and -- of course -- Alan Shepard who went into space for about 10 minutes on my birthday! My father -- a serious Civil War buff with a groaning bookshelf to prove it -- claiming his right to go out on a Saturday afternoon to do manly things with his son, took me, over my pacifist mother's objections, to see "The Horse Soldiers" on the big screen. Then, having seen I was manly enough not to cry or cover my eyes during the battle scenes, about a year later he took me to see "The Alamo" in which the heroic Union cavalry colonel (John Wayne) had been miraculously transformed into my first true love, Davey Crockett! (Eat your heart out, Fess Parker!)
So my "understanding" of Crockett and The Alamo changed face, but the example of Texian/American heroism was confirmed and -- I am ashamed to say -- my knowledge of that event, even after learning about how the US bullied the Mexicans into giving up what is now a major part of our Southwest, had remained largely unchanged until this morning.
Of course it is now no surprise to me that the Alamo was really about maintaining slavery and Manifest Destiny, and I have no doubt that better historians than John Wayne (who also produced "The Alamo) have gotten pretty close to knowing what really happened there, and I am not surprised that the underlying factors are less glorious than our pop-culture patriotism has made them seem. I am even pleased to know that Davey Crockett had the good sense to surrender and hang onto a few more minutes or hours or days of life, hoping, I suppose, to talk his way out of a bad situation rather than be snuffed out like his compatriots. He was reputedly a good talker and perhaps believed that discretion was the better part of valor, and all that.
Enough reminiscing.... My point is that myths, whether they be ancient Greek and Roman myths or the foundational national myths of modern nations are -- by definition -- both true and untrue simultaneously. Even the Alamo was an example of individuals fighting together in defense of something so important to them they were willing to die for it. We're talking immense physical courage in the face of near certain defeat and death. As the Italians say, "These are not peanuts."
So that part of the myth is true.
But history is not -- or at least shouldn't be -- aimed at propagating uplifting myths. Instead, history is the facts as determined by intelligent people doing the heavy lifting of finding out what really happened. It involves digging through rubble and rummaging in attics and re-reading long forgotten letters and journals and camping out in libraries and then trying to piece it all together so that we can understand the facts as they relate to other facts. And the best historians tend to be good writers as well.
So when historians do their job well, and the majority of other historians confirm the truth of one account over an earlier one, the only reasonable thing to do is accept the new version. And if this means discarding a glorious national myth much beloved by people like me with long memories, so be it, the truth is its own reward.
They very idea that Texas politicians would rudely cancel a "book event" at their State History Museum because the book in question is not to their liking and/or offends them is utterly unacceptable. Are we on the verge of a cultural revolution? Will they send people who disagree with their proto-fascist ideology to the gulags? Or are there gas chambers awaiting the "differently patriotic" among us? Thirty-seven years later, does 1984 still loom on our horizon?
Have the good people of the great State of Texas lost their marbles? Are they in the streets yet?
Leaving aside (which of course we cannot) global warming, I can think of no greater danger to our country and the world than politicians like Dan Patrick and Gregg Abbott.
And to your last point, we are getting distracted from the big things we should be paying attention to. Climate change is what we should be afraid of, and the widening gulf of income inequality, not CRT taught in grade school, which it never was, nor ever would have been.
Which is precisely the point, sadly Create crises where none exist, distract the voters, drive them away from the really critical problem of climate change while amassing billions and expanding the base for 2022. All with the illusions some want to believe. Evil incarnate. Dan Patrick should be written off as a brain-dead cultist. Instead, he is voted into a powerful position where he can manipulate the “narrative.” The saddest thing in the world to me is knowing how many of my fellow Americans, those who vote for people like Trump and Patrick, will die or be sickened by problems related to climate change. Grateful to you for noting this Kimberly! Now back to working on getting out the vote for 2022.
This should scare all of us. Qanon is encouraging their followers to run for school boards. If they do, and win, they can not only influence school policy, but also publicize...legally...their antics at school board meetings. Quite the propaganda tool. https://www.yahoo.com/now/qanon-plan-run-school-board-154949628.html
They’ve got one thing right - grassroots efforts and local elections make big impacts. Downplaying the crazy doesn’t make the crazy go away, it just makes it harder to see. And off-year elections with lower turnout makes it easier for them to be voted into service. Just as it makes it easier for anyone else running for local office. As quoted in the linked article, “Local action = national impact. Take responsibility for your school committees or boards. Get involved in the education of our children. Run for local, state and/or federal office.” That’s the new QAnon plan. Not so crazy.
Your quote from the article is exactly the template for civic engagement and what we need to be doing:
“Local action = national impact. Take responsibility for your school committees or boards. Get involved in the education of our children. Run for local, state and/or federal office.”
I feel silly replying to my own comment. Whatever. I just wanted to add that "Forget the Alamo" is a great title and should help to sell the book. I intend to latch onto a copy for sure.
Don't feel silly! Talking to one's self is a sign of high intelligence (I've heard).
David, I talk to myself when I need expert advice. 😉
Doubtful in my case. I used to multitask but now it's one thought at a time.
Irs called focusing. Most men are naturally good at it. I
Hey, thanks! Uh, wait a sec... was that a complement?
Nope. It was a compliment. (Darn spell check eh?)
Hard to imagine talented people ever choosing the educational field again under such oppressive anti intellectual gag orders. Smacks of some regimes we have known and know. What will be left will be robots, hacks and those who are willing to forgo thinking….
Post NCLB, efforts to standardize teaching in order to “help” less proficient teachers led to textbooks which robotized teaching. Textbooks were literally written in a “Teacher says”, acceptable “Student responses” format. As school librarian I was assigned a group of 5th grade students, reading at a 1st grade level, to tutor. When I stated that I had no training in remedial reading, I was told it wasn’t a problem and handed the remedial textbook. I stuck with it for two sessions and watched their eyes glaze over in 5 minutes. After that I dumped the textbook and started pulling resources from the library to work with them. Today’s good teachers are the ones who deviate as much as they are allowed from the woefully horrible adopted curriculum. The saddest thing is that with our annual testing of students resulting in punitive evaluations of teachers and schools, the pressure is on teachers to conform. The neediest, low performing students are the ones who are least likely to be taught by good teachers who are given the freedom to adapt/create lessons that engage and reach those students. The best teachers in the world can’t succeed when saddled with following “Teacher says” textbooks.
I taught school for 34 years. I witnessed the change from a child-centered education to a standards based education. I abhorred that change. I refused to follow those scripted programs, too. I had a principal who called me a rebel. I finally hit a point where I could do it no longer. I felt it was child abuse. No Child Left Behind left behind the students who were most at risk of failing. Because of this, I retired earlier than I had planned. The powers that be sucked all the joy out of teaching and learning. I can't recommend teaching as a profession anymore. I also tell friends that, if they can afford it, they should find a developmentally appropriate school for their children. One that is not controlled by government funding. My brother did that with his kids and they are incredibly well rounded and compassionate human beings.
It’s so depressing, but it was apparent last year in the flexibility private schools had teaching with Covid protocols.
It’s not just the Covid protocols. Private and good charter schools work with students who test well, so they have the flexibility to continue with child-centered education, which engages the students. So they learn more and teachers can do more. In the public schools that serve students who are dealing with poverty and other traumas, and as a result test poorly, teachers are under huge pressure to follow the script of whatever text/curriculum has been chosen by administrators far removed from the classroom. That flip side is a depressing vicious spiral downward. We have lost so many good teachers who were able to inspire their students and it’s hard to recommend teaching as a career. The pipeline is very inadequate for our needs. Our local school district has gone through the past several years with 200+ infilled positions. My daughter decided 10 years ago that she wanted to be a teacher and she has been teaching 6th grade math for 5 years. When she was trying to decide on a career I told her I couldn’t recommend it, but I knew she’d be really good at it. She’s beyond good, but gets so frustrated with being told to teach in a way that doesn’t work as well as lessons she developed on her own did. We need our public schools. I wish there were a way to ditch NCLB/ESSA annual testing and go back to the way it was 20 years ago.
I remember theme-based lessons, with a new theme every month, which incorporated all the subjects- reading, writing, math, science history and geography- like ocean animals, that got students excited to learn. We’ve lost those to Language Arts and Math test prep. :’(
Yes, we need tools and attitudes that get students excited to learn, which they come by naturally if we don't stifle and straight jacket it. Bravo to all the teachers in this country who teach with the students at heart, despite legislative attempts to ruin it.
Well said. It has been a very disheartening process to watch.
As goes our children, so goes US.
Could be. Hope not.
Morning David. For me today stranger danger is David Bowie and Daniel Boone, dang it. Makes me wonder what characters, fictional and real, we are misrepresenting to our children today. And it also made me think about the literally embarrassing display of grown adults over Dr. Seuss. I will never forget the Fox replaying of McCarthy reading Green Eggs and Ham like it was a requiem. Cancel culture, my foot.
“Ground control to Major Tom”. Jim Bowie, not David!
And I forgot Davy Crockett!
Ha! And Ted Cruz, not McCarthy. Wonder what stories they’ll tell about themselves.
I did not see the Cruz Seuss version. My viewing was McCarthy having NO idea how to read a children’s book.
😂
How did I miss that??! The Cruz version is painful too. WTH is wrong with them?
😉
I am thinking about what is it like for these children who are getting the constant messages of anger and fear? Toxic. I suppose some probably have the ability to end up thinking for themselves but for others, the inclusion in the tribe outweighs everything, and the cycle continues.
This morning's paper has a story that is appalling. This rich couple in Tampa has decided that the Catholic school they donated to is too "woke" and they want their donation back. The most offensive thing is that they mention a letter from the former school head that supported things like inclusivity, sensitivity, supporting LGBTQ students etc., all Catholic social justice issues. They want this school to stop being sensitive to their students. It will be interesting to see what happens. If rich parents control what is taught in school we are all in very dangerous territory: https://tampabaytimes-fl.newsmemory.com/?publink=28df68517_1345e38
I have an 18 year old who explains that his crowd wants to tear everything down and start again. They see the current world and feel they have no future. Many wonder why they don’t just play all day and ignore any responsibilities. They’re being forced into learning lies at school, watching climate change destroy a habitual earth and politicians encouraging a base they’ve lied to to go out and murder people in our Capitol then claim it was a tourist visit.
They don’t feel safe going to concerts or fairs because there’s always someone with a gun. They don’t want to be on an airplane because there’s no escape from violence.
In other words, they don’t see a future. It’s hard to convince them there is something good to look forward to.
Talk to them now about voting. Are they registered?
Oh yes, he and his friends voted with an enthusiasm i’ve never seen in 18 year olds. All during the pandemic.
I guess I was thinking of the kids growing up in conservative households. But, as you say, it's very hard right now for kids in general.
Yes I get that’s what you were thinking. But do you wonder if those kids have the same thoughts and feelings? My grandson convinced a kid in an ultra conservative household to look at the other side and he voted Democrat. His sister was already a Democrat voter and he’d heard plenty of arguments at home but was still going to do what his parents said. Mine took his ballot and book and did loads of research. I was really impressed. Each proposition and office was considered extremely carefully. Now if I could get him to apply that to his college classes!
Imagine being in a conservative home and terrified of gun violence, afraid to speak up. Imagine the pressure to conform to these outrageous conspiracy theories when you know it’s all wrong.
Well I did say some probably end up thinking for themselves...but you're right that there's lots to consider.
I read David Bowie and thought - what does Bowie (the singer) have to do with the Alamo? LOL You mean Jim Bowie of Alamo and knife fame.
I was quickly going through comment after I had posted that. I saw a comment as I scrolled and said who is talking about David Bowie? It was me. Ha! I posted a reference to Ziggy Stardust and corrected it. Thank you for senses of humor on this forum! Thanks, Judy!
How to mix up history….;-)
🤣
You may mean Jim Bowie.
Richard Widmark. The big knife didn't scare the Mexicans too much.
Well said, sir. And true, the desire to fight for and die for something you believe in is not peanuts. I choose to choose my defense of right more carefully.
As evening approached and a mighty storm of rain, fog and high humidity played on, I finally read your psalm of boyhood to enlightenment in America. David, it was enchanting and dramatic from Davey Crockett to Dan Patrick. Yes, even to end, when you questioned whether 'the good people of the great State of Texas lost their marbles'?, you stayed young until asking more serious and horrific questions about where we may be headed. You are one of the people that historians will find to tell future generations about how it was in America on July 8, 2021. Many thanks.
Thanks, Fern, for your kind words. I noticed NYC was getting whacked by a tropical depression. I hope you're living a few floors above street level.
Subways have been flooded. Don’t know more. My head is above water! Thank you for your interest.
“pop-culture patriotism” Perfect. This is what the right is obsessed with while our democracy and our planet are being destroyed.
Rest assured, Dan Patrick and Gregg Abbott are not among the "good people" of Texas. They are by far among the worst. When you add the crook AG, Paxton to the mix, you have a nest of "politicians" who are nothing short of damaged goods and just as disgustingly autocratic as TFG. BTW, I really enjoyed your reminiscing! More, please!
Excellent reply, good sir. Beautifully, thoughtfully written.
My interpretation of current events is that some Republicans are trying to legislate what we think.... Very scary indeed.
Well said, David. 🤙🏻
We seem to be of a similar age.
Jen-Pierre, there's a reason they call us "Boomers".
There's honest and dishonest. Honest history is a search for truth, a search that is never complete, and a truth that is never fixed. Dishonest history is the creation of myth to live in the place of truth, for the purpose that truth never be known.
It is very similar to science vs. religion. To me, that is the fundamental conflict of our time.
Dishonest history is the removal of documents from the public eye so history is left muted. Stalin. Anne Applebaum wrote in "Gulag" how difficult it was to find any documentation of the numbers who perished in the famine in Russia.
In the Soviet Union people withdrew into their nuclear families, as soon as housing in individual apartments allowed them to.
It was and often remains hard to retrace kith and kin or know their fate because fear cut through all social ties. Memories were hidden and often died with those who held them.
As heirs to Stalin's NKVD, Putin and today's FSB goons who rule (and ruin) the roost in today's Russia systematically persecute Memorial, the organization devoted to tracing the burial sites of the dictator's innumerable victims and placing names and portrait photos above mass Graves.
If we are foolish enough to fail to defend our hard-won democratic institutions, all of us may end up like Russians, as the playthings of deluded, greed-driven, incompetent and utterly irrelevant psychotics.
America is not yet quite clear of an attempt to install just such a regime. And there's a worldwide infestation on our hands. This, at a time when we face real issues of unprecedented gravity and painful complexity.
Indeed.
There's a lot on here today about those throughout the years who destroy the documentation of historical events so that their 'dishonest history' would gain credibility. It is the stock in trade of today's Republican Party. Believers in the "Big Lie" are no better than those who deny the deaths in the Gulag referred to above, the evils of slavery in this country and of course, the Holocaust. History is on the battlefield.
In my view, there is no science v religion. Both seek truth.
One with facts, one with bullshit. There is no mention in the Egyptian records (which are amazingly complete) of there ever being any slave class in Egypt that would be the Israelites, there is no mention of the plagues - which certainly would have merited mention being as incredible as they are described as being. In fact, the entire Jewish "claim" to Israel is based on a non-factual myth. Most of the rest of Genesis was lifted directly out of Chaldean culture and creation mythology by the Israelite priests during the Babylonian captivity when they were trying to create a "written history." The Bible is fictional bullshit from "In the beginning" to "the end."
Interesting when quantum physics is teaching us that no scientific experiment gives absolute facts as they are always influenced at least by the presence of the researcher........and of the absolute impossibility of totally fixing any point in space and time.
Interestingly enough though, scientific facts can be replicated, which isn't possible with religious "facts."
Thank you
Yes, at least simultaneously.
But TC let’s think fictional in a positive way like amazingly creative myth making that humans needed to create to make sense of life and that still works in places to light our way.
The God I believe in isn’t insulted or threatened by opinions like yours or mine - or by anything, for that matter. The God I believe in intended for the development of brains with which to not only regulate our bodily functions but to think. Thinking is neutral until it’s not.
IMO God and religion are not the same. Much like Stonehenge is not the sun or the bent tree is not the wind.
God is the creator and living presence of all that is. Religion is the human effort to understand and codify the unknowable. And historically religion was and is used to control behavior.
Our human need to control what we do not understand leads us astray again and again.
Oh Diane, you've been getting into Mummy's Spinosa again, haven't you? I love you for it. Cuppa?
A cuppa would be lovely. We keep trying to reduce this gorgeous, complex world into binary choices. We’ve even created a new language out of binary coding. We are such foolish creatures. And still, I’m so deeply grateful for it all.
Yes
Yes, there is that. :’-(
Spot on!
Agreed
To me, the Abrahamic religions (The 3 biggies always at war with each other) look an awful lot like a rewriting of what they call Greek Mythology. Jehovah is a twin bother of Zeus, supposedly making man out of clay, giving him some autonomy, insisting he worship Zeus or get hit by lightning bolts then sent to Hades. Zeus also meddles in the affairs of mortals, even having sex with them and making demi-gods (Perseus or Jesus). If copyright existed millennia ago, there would be one good case for infringement.
As a theology professor stated to a lecture: “Everything in the Bible is true, but not everything is factual.”
Which brand of canned worms do you prefer? ;-)
Can those Egyptian records be compared to any other records, are they the only source?
Too bad Caesar burned those libraries, proving once again how unhelpful censorship is.
No they are not the only source. Archeological digs in the Mediterranean area are a concrete source of data to either confirm or deny biblical information.
Give me "War and Peace". Pierre! Andrei! Natasha!
Give me Joseph Campbell.
Thank you thank you. Couldn’t have said it better myself!!
Some aspects if religion seek to dominate their clients thinking andvwill invent myths to that end.
Not always to confuse or mystify but to offer an understandable ideological structure for feeling included and have hope. Sometimes religion is simply fascist.
Others don't need it, go further, go deeper in their search...and are not necessarily happier but keep looking.
Indeed. :’-(
Within the limits of what we consider the universe, beyond which our knowlege is sketchy, science seeks to verify purported truths through tools such as observation, experience, evidence and experimentation. Religion seeks to verify purported truths through faith alone, independent of such tools, one of which is the study of history.
And often end up in the same place.
Like many things, the term “religion” means different things to different people and tribes. I prefer St. James’s definition. “Religion is caring for widows and orphans” and interpret “widows and orphans” to have a broader meaning than simply widows and orphans.
Atheists can care for widows and orphans too, but that doesn't make them religious, unless you assign a broader meaning to religion.
I think James was making the point, to the First Century Church, that true religion is less about control and conformity, and more about consideration towards and caring for others - particularly those in need. At the time, if not still, that was a radical idea.
Your first paragraph is admirable.
A pity about the second one, however much sense it may seem to make when we look around us.
I'm just thinking aloud rather clumsily, but perhaps much of what we call "science" is concerned with the search for and development of tools to enable us better to understand (and so control and exploit) externals, including -- in the case of life sciences -- even our own body/ mind, reified for the exercise, extracted, separated, reduced for purposes of study and analysis to something like a pathologist's tissue slides.
What I'm getting at here is many scientists' belief that reality is in effect an object, one that can only yield to investigation by the scientific method. A belief that is a useful mental lever, yet fails to address the fact that it is grounded in an intrinsically unreal abstraction: dualism.
I am not complaining about the precious work of, say, pathologists, and medical science in general, to which I personally owe my very life over the past decade and more!
Rather, I'm getting at the fact that so much of our current science and technology no longer has any prosthetic function but is divorced from its onlie begetters, mankind, places screens between us and reality, feeds delusions and the destruction of our relationship with ourselves, with our environment, with life itself, and our consequent endangering of not only our own but all species.
Meanwhile, it is true that much of what we see as "religion" is a dense forest of road signs, often pointing in the craziest directions, utterly at variance with the way shown by the founders. A hindrance, even a danger for wayfarers.
The search for truth may face us again and again with confusion and paradoxes, yet there's no intrinsic conflict between the natural sciences and the fundamental purpose of the religions (as opposed to the spurious purposes, hypocrisy, social control, to which misled misleaders have always subjected them).
The root question:
WHO, WHAT AM I?
And those (like "What do I think I'm doing here? What AM I doing here?") that follow directly from it.
For so long as we are unable or unwilling to probe those questions, regardless of our notions about "science", "religion" or anything else,
can there be any hope for us and the wonder in which we live, Earth?
Albert's perspective:
“Your question is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.”
― Albert Einstein
I have to say, I just love everything about that man. He would have a few good things to say on this forum. And about what’s going on in this country that he became a citizen of in 1940.
I read a novel about his wife, "The Other Einstein", by Marie Benedict that painted him in a not very flattering light. You might not love quite everything about him after reading it. Fiction, yes, based in a fair amount of research and fact.
Beth, My admiration for Einstein prompted me to learn about 'The Other Einstein', the book that you mentioned. As you pointed out it is historical fiction. The book received scant attention from major publications with books reviews. Readers seemed to enjoy it, yet some were disappointed by the liberties taken by the author. Here's are a couple of examples: 'Benedict's novel carries a story line that isn't consistent with historical research (Her author's note is built on ideas like "maybe," "perhaps," and "we don't know.") Were the allegations true, it would be a whopper.' Another wrote: 'I mostly enjoyed it while I was reading it - a bit of a slow pace at time - somewhat redundant at times. I love historical novels in that they can take you to another time and place. But in reading the author's supplemental bit at the end, I was really disappointed that she took SO MUCH license with the story.' Excuse my caution about the book, Beth, it was in defense of Albert Einstein.
No worries, Fern. Her schtick is to write about the unknown brilliant and amazing women beside the famous men we know about. I fell down quite a rabbit hole learning about Mrs. Einstein about whom not enough is known. I'm sure there's a grain of truth in her stories but we'll never know for sure. Of course we can point to the facts but not what they're relationship was truly like.
Indeed.
Glorious in it's simplicity and wisdom. Mystery, patterns and connections conveyed by Einstein as from a child and posted from kimceann. Kudos to the trio.
Glorious in its simplicity and wisdom and so well chosen.
Thanks for sharing that.
That Einstein, he was smart and considerate.
I tried to answer but my phone garbles everything.
Two key words to consider:
INWARD
INNATE.
Sorry this is so spare. Your message merits better.
Your question, Peter, brings to mind the same question asked of the zen monk, “Who are you?”, and of course he replied, “I don’t know.” In the Ultimate Truth of Buddhist philosophy, there is no answer, because “everything” is a delusion of a human’s mind. But then in Relative Truth, there are answers to any questions. I believe the truest answer is an attempt to live in non-duality, to the see the ‘other’ as oneself, as are all objects of all of our senses .....
The colon surgeon asked me immediately before surgery, while I was drifting away on the operating table, “Who are you?” to confirm my identity. I replied “In the Ultimate Truth, I do not know, but in this Relative World I am Frederick ...” After a successful operation, and through a universe of causes and conditions, I am able to happily relay this story.
Being willing to ask the question...
I particularly like your last part. If we are unwilling to look within and ask those questions, we are not being honest. And when we are not honest, our "stories" take control of us, usually not for good. The hurt, shame, anger, and hate many walk around with are a result of these stories on playback loop. The more they are repeated, the "truer" they become. And all the while, those emotions are not being addressed, just reinforced, ultimately becoming toxic. It's a shame that so many walk around wounded when they could be happier. And we all pay the price.
Thank you, Kim, for that highly pertinent clarification
of our personal responsibility.
We each came into this world naked (and noisily) and we'll be leaving it stripped of all those delusions we love to clothe ourselves in and strut around showing off how important they are -- in other words how important we are -- all that tawdry "identity" stuff, status, gender, "race", profession,
the list goes on and on and on; and in the end it's all quite irrelevant.
Isn't human life a chance to free ourselves of conditioning and move away from all that we are not... towards what we really are?
( Pardon any failures of expression, I'm writing in the midst of phone calls and 3 generations of family...)
I didn't mean it as a clarification Peter! Just a continuation of a great theme. And I appreciate how you continued it thus. Enjoy your mayhem! :)
Yes, you've put it well. It's always reassuring to meet people who think for themselves and can express their thoughts clearly.
But I was fumbling when I wrote that word and... I'm no good at multi-tasking...
Turn on the light of consciousness. It will heal the wounds. It’s where our self worth lies.
It reminds me of really annoyed me when dealing with academics in different Psychology Departments here in Paris and elsewhere. The question they ask of the human is always what, how and when all empirically verifiable....and ever so rarely why which requires a great deal of introspection and is always entirely subjective. Both are "science" but the latter is fundamentally about your question, Peter, "Who and what am I?"
Still stuck in 19th century positivism?
Not at all! Empiricism to my mind is an extremely limited way of looking at man and the forces of the universe and manages to "explain" so little. I am far from believing that what we can measure is all that counts and the rest is what the scientist might call pejoratively "subjectrive", quite the contrary.
Good morning Ralph. I always am interested in the direction of your perspective of HCR’s letters. And certainly today, from what I read, it has warmed up our “teapot” of a forum. I always have thought that religion emerged as a comfort zone for spirit to accept the unemotional tenets and truths of science. So that correction of human endeavor contrary to abundance of Earth’s resources can proceed peacefully. What a mess we have made of it. The “vs” inserted between the two instead of “both and”. An extremely fundamental conflict.
Thank you for the kind words.
"I always have thought that religion emerged as a comfort zone for spirit to accept the unemotional tenets and truths of science."
That is a good example of the positive use of religion.
Another example; I have known several people who used religion to climb out of addiction.
So true, Ralph. No correction without acceptance.
Thanks, Ralph. You have reminded me of that Oklahoma Representative (or is he a Senator?) who brought a snowball into Congress and proceeded to tell folks climate change didn't exist.
That fool!!?
Absolutely right!
Is it only on a politics site that we feel free to discuss religion?
Whattaya know, I got a for real Laugh Out Loud at that. :-)
😉
How could any of us have imagined a time in the U.S. when government officials would use their authority to suppress knowledge of what happened in the past? It's like the Soviets revising history to make it all glorious.
What's next? Book burnings? Or, if Republicans like Abbot ever gain enough power, the jailing of historians who dispel myths? Journalists who criticize GOP politicians? I fear we've only seen a glimmer of their potential immorality and corruption.
Sad to say, but we should be able to imagine it, because it happens all the time. To some degree, the winners write history; the rest of us--especially the historians among us--need to watch and think about when and how to "set the record straight."
When I was in fifth grade, in the mid-1950s, I was interested in the Civil War. My dad, a mechanical engineer who among other things designed steel mill equipment, was packing before taking a business trip to Birmingham, Alabama. He asked me if I would like a present from "down South," and I said I would. What he brought home for me--a sixth grade American history textbook from a Birmingham public school--was at first confusing, and went on to burn in me like a slow explosives fuse. The Civil War (The War Between the States) was, it seemed, quite different from what I had learned in an elementary school on Long Island . . .
So, back to the winners I mentioned above. They write histories, and sometimes the losers tell Big Lies. Fortunately, we have Professor HCR :)
What a great dad you had! He must have been proud how you chose your profession.
I did have a great dad. But I should clarify . . . I'm not a historian. I certainly admire historians, though. Especially HCR. What a treasure she is, and how fortunate we all are.
You sound a lot like my Dad. He was a student of history his entire life who worked as a surveyor, Army Sergeant, cab driver and meteorologist. I asked him once (when I was about 10) why he would reread several books regularly ("The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" was one of them; I don't remember the others off hand, but there were many on Roman history). He said "There are some things that are sound and foundational and there are other things that must never happen again. We need to know them both."
I think the kudos may have been for teaching young adults to express themselves? 👏🏼
Nance, you are too right, alas. As an historian who has spent a career revising the "canon" of historical interpretation I can safely say that the white male elites have created a discourse that obscures rather than reveals the past. History is not "what happened," it is the process by which people interpret the sources they consume. There is a tremendous amount of blinkered viewing of the artifacts of the past, which has led to a significant blurring of what might actually have been going on. Historians today are challenging the canons of previous generations of overwhelmingly white male historians who have dominated the presentation of the past. This has led to a reckoning--and a lot of controversy. If you want an example, the struggles of Professor Nicole Hannah Jones combatting racism and sexism in the Board of Trustees (almost all male, almost all white--appointed not elected by the governor) at UNC presents a stark one. https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article252593038.html
Yes, alas. Right now in my own house I am surrounded by white male elites. Life is emotionally touch and go, so sometimes (like in the middle of the night when I wrote) I simply take a break from thinking about them :). But you have nailed it, Linda. Thank you! And thanks for the NHJ reference!
Smart gift from your dad. 👍
Yes we do!
Vote Blue in 22 and Once More in 24
Great bumper sticker Lynell!
If Vote Blue in 22 “works”, then mayhaps it will be Vote Purple in 24. We will have saved each other.
I think someone should make a photo gallery of enormous black and white photos of every injured Capitol Police Officer. Over 140 injured. Their names, years on the force, and a quote about why they wanted to police our Capitol. All Trump followers in my mind have become zombies. They are brain washed and can’t hear truth any more. Maybe they can see it if it’s in their faces. The officers would have to be willing of course. If I could do it myself, I’d make a book and give proceeds to the officers.
My newest idea for a novel is to have a lone sabateur take out Fox News somehow. Without injuring any people. How great would that be? Really disable the news channel itself. Calling all hackers!
Yes they are like zombie cultists and those kinds are very difficult to reach. The trials of the Capitol Police touch my heart deeply because against that mob they didn’t have a chance. They suffered greatly and they are such a dignified group of public servants.
and some of them are/were Trump supporters (e.g., Brian Sicknick). I'm so amazed at the job they did against insurrectionist odds.
Yes yes yes!! To do otherwise is a disgrace. Also, the Lincoln project might manage to hit this one hard and effectively.
Great suggestion....please let them know about your idea!
Oh Jeanne…call a publisher today and sell it. That is damn funny!
It's NOT funny - it's the TRUTH. And the truth about this country right now is in the damn basement, hidden by the entire GOP.
Dana, I was referring to Jeanne’s “call for all hackers”. I thought she framed her idea for her novel idea and the lone saboteur main character in a lighthearted way. I was in no way mocking the truth of the GOP’s treasonous behavior. I’m sorry this upset you. Please accept my apology.
Jeanne Doyle, I listen to the novelists and the artists - they FORETELL our future. I think this is a great idea for a story. I did NOT know 140 Capitol Police were injured. And the trump followers as zombies, absolutely. They don't think for themselves anymore - if they ever did. I think the officers would be willing to have their stories told! As for the lone saboteur taking out Fox News - wow!!! Without injuring people? Destroying equipment would be great, though. It's Rupert Murdoch who has driven this entire country to this point. ALSO he's a complete global warming denier and has driven that story into the DISASTER we're in now. But he has a whole goddamn empire.
Maybe a creative person could create this bumper sticker and we could all buy them and distribute them???
I can do it if people are interested!
Kimberly I’d be willing to collaborate and help with start up costs etc but I hope we can get other people to from Heather’s Herd.
Yes, the question is how to broadcast the idea and see if we could get some upfront orders...I will look into costs in the meantime.
Do it! No time like the present to get started on getting out the vote.
I think the GOP is almost beyond salvation. I hope you are right because a country can always use at least two dissenting parties but nowadays the GOP it’s an authoritarian force serving the very rich, not of this country but the international very rich such as McConnell’s father in law or Putin. Or of course all those others my ignorance doesn’t let me know of.
There are many Republican voters that do not even recognize their representation of their party around the country. They do not agree that only opposition can be an agenda. I just don’t want them to sit at home in 2022 and not vote. I want them to vote against the lies. And I believe they can be convinced to do so at this particular time without changing to another party.
Florida has its own Lauren Boebert candidate...Anna Paulina Luna...whom Newt Gingrich has now endorsed. That should tell you everything you need to know about Republicans. In case you are not familiar with Looney Luna, she ran against Charlie Crist in the last election. She routinely poses with assault rifles....the whole nine yards. Luckily that district is solidly blue, but you never know what could happen. If you are in district 13, encourage everyone you know to not vote for this crazy person. https://floridapolitics.com/archives/439544-newt-gingrich-endorses-anna-paulina-luna-in-cd-13-race/
Oh yes. Know of her. Have worked on opposing her in last election.
They are a terrorist organization actively supporting political violence and the overthrow of the US government.
Yup.
This is not the first time in our history that a governmental body has tried to silence educators….
“Jan. 21, 1925 – Rep. Butler introduces legislation in the Tennessee House of Representatives calling for a ban on the teaching of evolution. The proposed law, known as the Butler bill, would prohibit the teaching of "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals."”
https://www.npr.org/2005/07/05/4723956/timeline-remembering-the-scopes-monkey-trial
I learned much later in life that history we studied in school (school for me was the late 1950s and 1960s) was edited. Sometimes for brevity, often to present the story in a certain light. Books I read on my own opened my eyes to this. Such as “Slaughterhouse 5”, by Vonnegut. Or “Johnny Get Your Gun”, by Trumbo. There were others, too many to list here (often about the unheroic, brutal side to war, it seems that war history is often gilded and elided). But probably the most eye-opening book for me was “A People’s History of the US”, by Zinn. My public school history books (and teachers) left a lot out, it seem. So much of history is not told, intentionally. Dangerous stuff, this history.
Yes. Book burnings and those types of things are what come next. I believe book burning types of stunts have been performed already over the last 5 or so years anyway. What is interesting to me is that all the hostility to education, expertise, correcting the of the historical record in addition false flag flying is very much the same as the cancel culture that the right disdains in left leaning citizens. Our politics has serious mental health issues and I don't think it will go away even if citizens were happy with their racial and socio-economic positions. It is just too addicting to hate and fight and it is too entertaining to watch politicians act out reality TV scripts. FOX News is truly a form of entertainment for many people and facts, truth and details don't matter. Book burnings are exciting, cathartic and dramatic. Politics is the new “opiate of the masses”.
@Robert Allen this is all a general example of the unconscious psychological process of "projection." In fact, I'm going to make a sweeping statement that is probably untrue in the small, but true enough in the large to be useful. Every conspiracy theory and odious or criminal act shouted out by the Republicans, is in fact something THEY are doing. It's why they believe in it: it IS true, and they know, because they are doing it. They just flip it around and point at others.
A cabal of wealthy, cannibalistic pedophiles and sex perverts? Can anyone say Jeff Epstein?
A government takeover by tyrants? Right there in front of us.
Fake news? Plain as day.
Cancel culture? Yep.
I think if we simply remove the "who" from their hysteria, and concentrate on the "what," we'll find there's more truth in it than not. Certainly more truth than I am comfortable with.
Very well said, Robert. Thanks.
“Book burnings” are happening. But now it’s theory….. online fire.
All of the above, if they can't away with it.
Sorry I meant: "if they CAN get away with it." Duh.
Michael, it happened in China under Mao Zedong!
One thing humans have known, from at least the time of the Roman Empire, is that if you destroy the access to knowledge the population can be more easily controlled. It is a standard method of "culture cleansing."
It is why the Goths burned the Library of Celsus in Ephesus in 262 CE. Why the Ottoman Turks destroyed the library of Constantinople. It's why the Nazis destroyed Warsaw. It's why ISIS destroyed heritage sites in Iraq and Syria.
It is why Republicans are obsessed with perpetuating lies.
It's why the IRA in 1922 set fire to the Public Record Office in Dublin. It's why the Venetians used the Parthenon as an ammo dump and exploded it in their wars against the Turks in the 17th century (1687 to be exact). It's why the Nazis torched the Neapolitan Archives in 1945. It's why the US Air Corps bombed Monte Cassino. The people who do propaganda are on both sides.
Terrorsist groups that verge on criminal "business" gangs also blow up banks and tax offices so that they don't have to repay loans or pay taxes on any legit earnings from the businesses that they have "sequestered" as the documentation has gone up in smoke.....i'm thinking particularly of Corsican "Independentistas" as it happens every year.
I guess I must have missed your point - what's the "both sides" got to do with anything?
It’s why the Taliban blew up the giant Buddhas and why congress is removing Confederate busts. Both sides.
No. It's not the same thing. Having Confederate monuments in public spaces is akin to Germany allowing Nazi monuments in public spaces. Removing Confederate monuments is not a cultural cleansing. Unless you consider white supremacy, racism, enslavement, sedition, and treason to be culture that should be celebrated.
https://theweek.com/political-satire/1002403/banning-the-past
Having taught U.S. history for 27 years, and as a current historic preservationist, I find Dr. Richardson to be a beacon of truth. I am deeply grateful for her voice.
Dear Prof. HCR,
Never have truer words been spoken since the GOP has linked itself to the most heinous of lies. Thank you for always speaking truth to power in such subtle, yet powerful of ways. They lead to dialogue, critical thinking, and in-depth assessments of past, present and future realities. You have my eternal gratitude for inevitably shining a bright light on what matters.
"An inaccurate picture of what creates change means that people cannot make good decisions about the future. They are at the mercy of those who are creating the stories. Knowledge is indeed power.
So the destruction of accurate history is about more than schools. It’s about self-determination. It’s about having the freedom to make good decisions about your life.
It’s about the very things that democracy is supposed to stand for."
—-
Good morning friend Rowshan! HCR’s wallapalooza two sentences to me this morning are quoted by you above—“An inaccurate picture of what creates change means that people cannot make good decisions about the future. They are at the mercy of those creating the stories.”
I stopped reading for a bit after that sentence. I have a concise and clear answer now to a question that has bugged me daily. Why is it that the former president has so many clinging to his coattails still? And it’s not just his supposed base of the “common rural working man”. I saw few of those at his Sarasota rally last weekend.
They are faux slaves themselves, so to speak, at the mercy of their storyteller. No wonder the fealty. The former has re-instituted the institution of “owning” with his sidekick Fox News Channel.
So, HCR’s letter this morning will serve as an “aha!” and a boost for me as I continue my messaging on all fronts to preserve freedom going into 2022 elections.
While seeming insignificant to some, this is such an eye opener for me. For heaven’s sake, it all comes down to history.
So glad that those lines speak to you as they speak to me. Now, how do we make the disciples disillusioned?!!!
As HCR has noted elsewhere, 40 percent of voters are Independents. The far right is systematically going after them. Our efforts need to be directed at this influenceable middle, not the lost cause disciples, some of whom might eventually come around by the laws of attraction.
Gently letting them know that the heaviness they feel in their spirits are the invisible chains on their minds.
(and then, if they don’t get that, I’m going to use much more forceful and colorful dialogue!)
😂😂😂
"Those who make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." (Voltaire)
Your quoted sentences are the ones leaping out at me as well. Thank you.
HERE’S A FACT OF HISTORY
I haven’t said the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States since sometime in high school in the early 1960s where I protested saying it by rote each morning in class. IT IS NOTHING BUT LIES.
Also, to their credit, no one in my St. Louis County high school tried to discipline me for that like so many schools ignorant of the law have tried to do since. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1943 that it violates students’ First Amendment rights to force them to recite a “patriotic” pledge.
In 2002, I even wrote a dissention for not pledging allegiance to a national lie. I updated it in 2015. It seems I was a part of a critical history movement before ever hearing about it.
Questions of Allegiance
Rob Boyte
June 26, 2015
Why pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, or to the Republic for which it stands, that allowed slavery until 1863, denied women the vote until 1920, segregated its armed forces by race until 1948, persecuted political minorities throughout the 1950s, and into the 21st Century still denied full rights to homosexuals to serve in its military until 2011 or to reap the benefits of marriage until 2015?
One nation, indivisible would not disfranchise its Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists or others who do not accept the archaic concept of a "god" by forcing them to read "in god we trust" on every coin of a supposed secular state. "We" do not all agree that ours is a nation "under god" and for the religious majority to assume such is a most divisive insult.
With Liberty and Justice for all, except of course those too poor to afford a slick lawyer in the court system, too black to be presumed innocent by the police or too in love with someone of the same gender.
I love this. My own rebellion to the pledge began in the third grade when I stopped saying the words "under God". I subsequently added "for the majority of the people who can pay for it" at the end.
I like yours better!
Same here, Ally. Though my addition was a standard “blah blah blah”. Yours is better:)
Yep: I refused to take the pledge beginning in fourth grade. And my parents were so proud of me! My teachers not so much . . .
I did a lot of theatrics with my protests, sometimes standing with the Nazi (or Roman) salute. Got some about 6 other students involved and formed the Association of Secret Students (for the acronym). Sophomoric stuff – we were adolescents. My mom was not proud and once said she wished I was like other kids. She had no idea what was to come later. :)
I hope your Mom came to the realization you were “one of a special kind” and worthy of her pride. If not, her loss.
Eventually, by the 1990s she did. But, before that was the “sex, drugs & rock-n-roll” of the ‘70s and my “black woman” of 1980, which was 2 years of non-communication. But she apologized to Brenda & me for the racism and (with my sister’s help) we actually visited each other. I think I was born to her for her enlightenment. :)
I would have to agree. She certainly evolved!
Good morning Rob. Agggghhhh, a pledge that was always a broken promise. But people still recite it, praying it will be true if we say it enough.
I feel that in many ideas we hold on to, there is the element of “never forget this” that forms how we see the world. To our sorrow, it also works with maintaining “Big Lies”.
Just a short reply, I support the ACLU and also Freedom from Religion, who work to keep religion out of government. I have seen recently, some polling that said less than 50% of respondents said they were "religious". A change that is hopeful in my book.
I love this too. Just want to comment on this: "...like so many schools ignorant of the law have tried to do since." I'm not sure they were ignorant of the laws.
Whether they know the law or just refuse to abide by it, the ACLU (of which I have been a card-carrying member since 1986) takes them to court. Like the 15-year-old girl, Mary Kait Durkee who sat during the pledge in a San Diego school in 1998 because she did not believe in a god. School tried punishing her & ACLU took them to federal court. I wrote her a letter of support as many others did and she wrote back that she appreciated it. I admire the few principled, outspoken young ppl who take a stand (or sit-down) for civil-rights.
Or those at sports venues who kneel during the National Anthem to show respect for the ideals but point out how far we’ve fallen short. For all the right wing complaints, I have yet to see a camera pan over the crowds in the vendor lines to show me anyone who turns in line to face the flag and put hand over heart. They seem to all just continue to peruse the menu or chatter away to each other. Hrrumpf!
These comments are well worth publishing in their own right.
Sadly, the audience that most needs to read them seems incapable of comprehension.
Can I share this, it's really good Rob
Sure. Actually, I have a scan of this written in script. I can send by e-mail attachment
roboyte@att.net
We pledge allegiance to the ideals represented by the flag and to the republic for which it stands, to its potential for justice not to the injusticesw it perpetrates. Without ideals to aspire to, all that’s left is cynicism and nihilism. See the GOP for what THAT looks like.
Unfortunately, the actual pledge of allegiance to the flag does not say that.
It’s all in the intention...
It's interesting how "inaccurate history" can have a major effect. My three books on the Korean War demonstrated to me - and it appears I demonstrated to my readers - that the "forgotten war" (which the Korean War is) never got real study afterwards, and that most of the "facts" about the war people who have read anything about it believe are really just unexamined wartime propaganda, buttressed by "facts" that were created by "cooking the books" to the point they were limp spaghetti. This was particularly true with loss rates. The Air Force only listed an airplane as "lost in combat" if it actually went down in a battle. If it was shot up and crashed on the way home, that was "engine failure" or the old go-to, "pilot error", both of which made the lost "non-operational." If the airplane got back to base but was so badly damaged it never flew again, that was also a "non-operational" loss. If it crashed on landing because it was so damaged from combat, that was always put to "pilot error" (since the guy was usually dead and therefore unable to argue otherwise). Then, conversely, they claimed "victories" over the other side that had no connection to reality. The MiG-15 was a very tough airplane, and it was hard to shoot it down with the machine guns an F-86 was armed with (which is why after the war they went to 20mm cannons). So they determined that if on the gun camera film examined later, they could count a certain number of "hits", then that airplane most assuredly went down afterwards if not during the fight directly. The end result of all this hocus-pocus was the famous "10:1" victory ratio. In reality, the overall victory ratio - when the Soviet loss records (they also cooked the books, but not so badly) became available, it was found (as it has been ever since 1915 when the first pilot shot down another airplane) that they had overclaimed by what some of us now call "the historical standard" of 300% of actual losses. Interestingly, that "10:1" victory ratio was held up during Vietnam as proof the air war there wasn't going well - when I talked to Vietnam era pilots and told them the real loss rate in Korea was about the same as what they had done, some didn't want to believe that.
So there you have a very "esoteric" bit of historical fallacy - it had a major effect on coming to an understanding of what exactly had happened in Korea, which incorrect info there led to incorrect analysis in Vietnam (and not just of air losses, but of how/why certain political alliances worked or didn't work).
And the "America First" crowd is just as unhappy to discover the real facts about the Korean War as they are to learn the "1619 project." As the negative reviews of my work demonstrate.
Wow. Thank you. My dad was a pilot in Korea.
Perfect description of what Ron DeSantis has done with Covid statistics in Florida!
"Give us the real COVID-19 numbers, Gov. DeSantis | Editorial - South Florida Sun Sentinel - South Florida Sun-Sentinel" https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/editorials/fl-op-edit-desantis-covid-numbers-20201028-a26ckiotjbbjtbacbf7ffxsbty-story.html?outputType=amp
And it's not just the Korean War. My uncle was killed in WWII. He was training a student pilot who crashed the plane and killed them both. The official death says "non-combat related" death. Hmmmm................
TC, I generally find your comments to be both informative and entertaining. But when I google "TC" and/or "Korean War books" and/or "That's Another Fine Mess", I find only Amazon and Laurel and Hardy. Can you give me a hint that might take me to your Korean War books or other writings? THNX!
David Herrick, tap TCinLA and it takes you to TC’s latest substack column.
I too would like a link to TC’s books.
See above. :-)
Amazon is where my Amazon page is, with all my books.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=thomas+mckelvey+cleaver&i=stripbooks&crid=3D3Y9EE4Y767N&sprefix=thomas+mckel%2Caps%2C221&ref=nb_sb_ss_c_2_12_ts-doa-p
That's Another Fine Mess:
https://tcinla757.substack.com/
Thank you TC. I will check it out.
David and Christian…. Go on Amazon. TC’s fabulous books are there. Thomas McKelvey Cleaver. There are 6 including pre-order on his latest The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club.
Thanks Christine.
I have been reading TCinLA’s substack articles this morning and am considering a subscription but am hesitant because he does not attach his name or credentials to the column the way I have come to expect from being an HCR subscriber.
Oh do subscribe. His blog is such a complement to HCR’s Letters and truly a compliment towards aviation history. TC’s storytelling makes history fascinating.
Blessings, Christian!
Flattery WILL get you *everywhere* Christine! :-)
Reading TC (Thomas McLelvey Cleaver)'s "Tidal Wave." I was blown away just by the intro!
Thanks, MaryPat.
Truth.
My "about" page at TAFM:
https://tcinla757.substack.com/about?utm_source=menu-dropdown
There is an "about me" there. At the current time, I think everyone knows the name now.
Thanks, Christine, kind of you to intervene!
If only we had not tried to cross the Yalu River...
Absolutely right. Had Big Mac just liberated Seoul and stopped at the 38th parallel at the end of September, things would have been different, but by then McCarthyism was in full swing, and an unwillingness to "roll back" the enemy was "soft on communism," and now a political "third rail." It wasn't crossing the Yalu, it was crossing the 38th Parallel (an easy transposition to make). I go into that in detail in "The Frozen Chosen."
I loved the Dave’s Crockett song as a child and used to sing it over. Thank you for your clear and passionate explanation about why history matters —especially history that is factually based. I had read the review of this new take on the Alamo last Sunday in the NYTIMES book review section. The author and the book received favorable commentary. It’s a shame that the repug powers that be are desperate to appease future repug voters. As a retired teacher and one having been certified to teach high school history— I feel sorry for current history teachers in these backward states trying their best to control what teachers say by politicizing just about everything. Teachers then have to be careful not about passing on knowledge but to make sure they don’t step on toes and stir controversy—especially if they value their jobs. The biggest loss is to the kids who miss a rich, controversial history lesson that gets them thinking how interesting history is.
Good morning Liz. Having been in public education for so long, I remain oddly neutral about the teacher unions. But they are fiercely gearing up for what looks to be protecting teachers against censorship by state legislatures. And teachers (naively perhaps, but I’m totally with them on it) are not only rolling their eyes at the “new rules” (e.g. about Critical Race Theory) but also reminding those worried that it’s not their first time at the censorship rodeo. I can remark definitively from my own experience that flying under the radar is quite the secret adage amongst free thinking teachers to keep thinking exactly that….free.
Unions are interesting critters. My experience with the union that I belonged to was that it helped to keep our management in line with respect to work hours, following termination procedures, and employee representation. I know that police unions in other parts of the country really take some of the things like qualified immunity and some others (which escape me in the fog of not enough coffee) to the furthest extreme. My mother in law was a teacher whose administration did not like her or what/how she taught to her students (middle school English) to the degree that it was OK for teachers to drink coffee (which she detested) but she could drink neither Coke or ice tea from a coffee cup... Her union backed her strongly, and she was able to have the caffeinated beverage of her choice, disguised in a coffee cup.
For sure— learning the politics in any school is key to survival.
Indeed Liz. True in any job, but amplified in public schooling because there are so many “interest groups” which can and do get passionately involved around particular issues while remaining generally AWOL about key, longstanding issues (because those are complex and take too much sustained work to adapt or alter). Leaving unions aside for the moment—though they are powerful actors in conflicts that arise—I would argue that teachers’ best allies in curricular struggles over disputed “ideologies” are their administrators. If your department head, person responsible for curriculum development (often a Vice-Principal), and/or Principal back up your approaches on contested issues, you are free to use your judgment and expertise.
And history teachers have one major advantage over other humanities disciplines: written records. There can be equal hue and cry from the offended, but unlike choices of literature, a history teacher can say “Well, this is what they said and/or institutionalized at the time.” So, in the American History units on the Civil War and lead-up to it, I cut selections from several Southern states’ declarations of secession—each of which strongly stated that they were leaving the union to defend their way of life based on chattel slavery. FWIW, I also cut and distributed newspaper accounts of John Brown and his Harper’s Ferry raid to different groups, only tagging the selections by newspaper name, city, and party allegiance. The more knowledgeable kids were initially s/w thrown by the facts that the Democratic papers were “the bad guys,” but also noted that the Republican papers (anti-slavery) did everything but deify Brown, who after all aimed for a general insurrection against the government and killed a number of people in the process. My stance was, if you want to learn from how riven the country was at the time—leading to the greatest crisis in our history—here’s the evidence. Plus, it all sent students to primary sources, and (hopefully) improved their abilities to parse and interpret non-fiction prose—a major test-regimen goal. Makes it harder to argue with—though of course some did, which is why the back-up by local educational experts helps a lot.
The other major external factor was (and is) that there are no agreed-upon test hurdles for students’ progress in knowing/using history—for the simple reason that teaching history is always political, and test-authoritarians have so far not managed to marshal sufficient public support (and money) to institutionalize whatever their proposed ideology was.
Cheers.
Second-hand information from someone who had a long relationship with a management-side negotiator. The negotiator loved working with (academic) unions, because of the fact that all of the ire of the union members came down to negotiating with one guy in closed room, who was often neither particularly bright (meaning devious) nor incorruptible. As the management rep, he had a couple of decades of experience, and a stable job working against the unions. When he couldn't bamboozle the union rep, he always had the option of subtle bribery, and whatever agreement they walked out of the room with, was the agreement.
If the union members didn't like it, they could vote out their union rep and threaten to strike again, which was a rinse-and-repeat with a new union rep likely even less experienced than the previous one.
It was an unexpected revelation for me. But it makes sense.
I've never held a job that had a union, so I've had exactly zero first-hand experience with them.
I have a picture of me (barely out of toddlerhood) and one of my brothers wearing our Davy Crockett faux coonskin hats when they were all the rage mid-1950’s. For years, I thought Fess Parker was Davy Crockett! My mother told me that a couple of times in church when the hymn singing began I would belt out in my loudest (and totally off key) child voice, the Disney Davy Crockett song. That was the end of my religious period 😂
Fess Parker was Daniel Boone! Totally different TV show with Ed Ames as his native sidekick. Crazy stuff.
Fess Parker played both roles.
His run as Davy Crockett was pretty short, but got him noticed. His sidekick in Davy Crockett was Buddy Ebsen ("Georgie"). They apparently remoulded the television miniseries from the '50s into feature films in the '60s.
He did indeed. Talk about being type cast.
Here's a thought - are we seeing Trump as a cut leader?
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/07/12/what-makes-a-cult-a-cult
A quote
"Some scholars theorize that levels of religiosity and cultic affiliation tend to rise in proportion to the perceived uncertainty of an environment. The less control we feel we have over our circumstances, the more likely we are to entrust our fates to a higher power. (A classic example of this relationship was provided by the anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski, who found that fishermen in the Trobriand Islands, off the coast of New Guinea, engaged in more magic rituals the farther out to sea they went.) This propensity has been offered as an explanation for why cults proliferated during the social and political tumult of the nineteen-sixties, and why levels of religiosity have remained higher in America than in other industrialized countries. Americans, it is argued, experience significantly more economic precarity than people in nations with stronger social safety nets and consequently are more inclined to seek alternative sources of comfort."
I don’t believe that is still in question. The expert:
https://www.simonandschuster.net/books/The-Cult-of-Trump/Steven-Hassan/9781982127343
Actual observations: “”Yes,” he says with a youth pastor’s grin. “Like Scripture.” Every tweet, every misspelling, every typo, every strange capitalization—especially the capitalizations, says Dave—has meaning. “The truth is right there in what the media think are his mistakes. He doesn’t make mistakes.” The message of the shirt to Dave is: Study the layers. “Trump is known as a five-dimension chess player,” Dave says later. And he’s sending us clues. About the Democrats and Ukraine and his plans. “There are major operations going on,” Dave tells me months later, suggesting that Trump is using COVID-19 field hospitals as “a cover” to rescue children from sex trafficking.” From: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/inside-the-cult-of-trump-his-rallies-are-church-and-he-is-the-gospel/amp
Wow. Fascinating.
I loved my Davy Crocket hat as a child. I remember running free with the other kids in the neighbourhood in the 1950’s, it’s little fake racoon tail flapping in the breeze.
I remember that craze. It came from the tv series. Totally untethered from history. I think of Davy Crocket vaguely in association with Kentucky, and I can't keep him separate from Daniel Boone.
"Born on a mountain top in Tennessee,
Greenest state in the land of the free,
Raised in the woods so he knew every tree,
Killed him a bar when he was only three..."
Ear worm alert! I''l have that in my head forever thanks to Walt Disney. He was my early "incorrect history" teacher via the Mickey Mouse Club.
So true, Carla!
I had my TV on tuned to a channel that broadcasts old shows. One early morning a cartoon show came on. My husband and I were not really paying attention at first. Then after a few minutes we turned to each other to voice our amazement at how violent this episode was. We tuned in to this channel for several days which confirmed our memory that this is what our generation was fed every day...and still is today, it seems.
But I never remember thinking that the behavior I was watching (and enjoying) was something that I should emulate in my own life. Why is that, I wonder.
Good wonderment, Lynell! Such a good question. I also wonder what did Walt Disney know? What did he learn about slavery? Here we all were, sitting in front of that glowing box and absorbing fantasy and not facts. I wish I was an avid reader as a child instead of watching so much TV. Can't go back. Making up for that now, though.
Maybe because in the late 50s/60s our TV watching was minimal and mostly what we heard from our mothers was “Go outside and play.” We we’re not immersed in media instead of reality/nature.
I have to wonder how much of our current gun culture is because that generation has been immersed in media which features violence, not the fantastical dropping of an Acme safe, but TV and video games that show and often glorify violence between humans. When we played outside with neighborhood kids, we learned to not hurt each other and the cowboys and Indians violence was all pretend.
Such a great point! We played outside until dark. Lots of imaginative play and time spent with friends outside.
Good point, Danielle. Our fifties/sixties cartoons were mostly animals, with some human involvement as I recall.
I hear you Lynell. I’m always looking for an Acme safe to drop on someone. Figuratively, of course.
Funny!!!
Yeah, mine too. 😐
Dave’s Davey Crockett king of the wild frontier!
So long before Fox news, we were being taught the lies.
Yes. I have long detested Disney and all it represents.
I lived in Seminole County, which is in the Greater Orlando Area, for a number of years. Detest is too polite a word for what I think of Disney. They have an outsized political influence by getting employees elected to County Commissioner positions in Central Florida counties, skirting requirements for eligibility to run. For example, Disney aids an employee in buying a house in the district, financially supports the campaign, and then the Commissioner uses the position to effect Disney's chosen outcome. Commissioner doesn't occupy the home and actually resides near the park. But, as owner of the home, claims residency and thus eligibility to run. Local residents suffer Disney's tyranny in a thousand paper cuts. Disney was able to thwart efforts for high speed rail between Orlando and Tampa because there would be no stop at Disney.
I had no idea, but it makes perfect political corporate sense. Evil.
A long time ago now, but Disney was thwarted by Virginians when they wanted to build a park a few miles from the Manassas Battlefield Park in Haymarket. I was and am so glad it never happened. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney%27s_America
Wow, did not know that but sorry to say not surprised.
Classic example of corporate manipulations of law and political power. Thanks. Good example to know.
Well, we had to start somewhere. I mean, c'mon, "Fantasia" is great.
But Warner Brothers animations were so much better, and subversive.
I used to get up early to watch old Terrytoons with all the mice marching off to war.
Okay, David! I will give you that!
I first saw that when I was about eight years old. Don't remember why now, but it scared the crap out of me.
It still is!
World War II newspapers was a mess of propaganda .
And newsreels
Very minor point, but I think the association was with Tennessee. "Born on the mountaintop in Ten-nes-see/Raised in the woods when he was only three/Davy, Davy Crockett/King of the wild frontier.
That was only the first verse of the myth. The rest is hazy in my mind, but some of it goes something like this:
"He heard of Houston and Austin and so,
To the Texas plains he just had to go,
Where freedom was fighting another foe..."
Right, as far as I can remember, it was the first verse. I don't think I knew more than one or two beyond that.
Davy Crockett has a fuel center and truckstop on I-81 in Tennessee. He's like Bill Haslam (former gov) with a flea-ridden hat.
Me too - at least as a kid.
Davey was more of a Tennessee guy. An interesting character, whatever myth or truth one chooses to believe.
I had one too in Newcastle on Tyne.....running around the backwoods playing cowboys and indians.
Always riding "horses" around my neighborhood with my best friend.
As a kid, my Chippewa husband always played a cowboy.
Demo-ing out life’s problems.
That’s really funny, Stuart. But I then remember living in Leesburg VA and playing with Excalibur ( a board ), and my poor brother and sister forced to play knights.
Sir Galahad, Lancelot etc came a little later when there was question of Guineveres.
Lone Ranger masks…
And then, after Star Wars franchise, our children picked up light sabres and cowboys and indians were replaced by the Rebel Alliance and the Empire starring Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.
Now their children compare Darth Vader and the Emperor to who?
I’m grateful my kids were Harry Potter kids, running around with sticks for wands and making potions out of leaves and berries and dirt! Not that they didn’t love Star Wars; they did. But Harry Potter dominated their play.
Yes! Harry Potter and his crew led in first decade of the new century!
Thank goodness for The Simpsons and South Park…
Trump?
Yes! And good morning, Liz. But Pres Biden is so much older than Luke. I think he might be Yoda!
And now we only have "cops and robbers" on the TV
I had one too Robin. They were fun.
Yep, me too.
IMHO, Russell Vought and his Center for Renewing America pose a clear and present danger to our society. I hate how patriotism and Christianity have become weaponized by lies.
Whatever happened to separation of church and state?
We still have that in MA
Such a wise concept.
It's right out of 1984 - if you control the past, you control the future.
We have always been at war with Eastasia...
Yup.
IMO, it is a dangerous precedent when there are barriers put in place that limit the assessment and discussion of historical events within factual context.
And of course now the document “Model-School-Board-Language-to-Ban-CRT-SD-HCS-edits-1” has also become part of the historical record of original sources.
I grew up in Texas. I had at least two doses of Texas History. And I can say with almost 100% certainty that retaining the institution of human enslavement was never cited as the reason for the Texian rebellion. I was an adult before I realized that Texas didn't join the Confederacy to "protect states' rights," it joined to protect the right to own human beings. The whitewashing of Texas history has been going on for a very long time.
The whitewashing can be found in all areas of history not just Texas. The winners get to choose the narrative.
Perhaps I'm wrong about this, but isnt "states' rights" the right of states to have its own "peculiar institutions" like slavery? And I commented recently on a different site about the run-up to the War of Secession, where the southern states were angry with the northern states because they did not enforce the southern states' (property) rights when slaves escaped across the state boundaries by aiding in the recapture and return of "their" slaves.
I think "states' rights" is just code for allowing, supporting, and enforcing slavery.
I so very worry about the public education system of today. It has been a very long time since people have relied on the wealth of education that teachers achieve to educate our young. I remember when No Child Left Behind was enacted and the sudden swing to hold teachers and schools solely responsible and accountable for the deficits and differences in children's achievement. Poverty, addictions, abuse, trauma, lack of parenting skills or mental health struggles were never taken into account for children struggling with their education. The focus became educating the child in how to take the tests. Providing wall references and teaching them how to locate the information they needed while testing. Not that we teach them the actual information on these charts and reference guides, but how to use them. Every morning we had 40 minutes of remediation groups. Children assigned to a teacher for their area deficits. No plans or materials, but fix their problems. Then in the afternoon there was a block of time with purchased materials to learn to take a test. Social studies and science were watered down time wise to put these new "classes" on the schedule. Then we went further and the government "punished" schools and districts and individual educators that didn't match the achievement standards and improve every year. Sadly, for many schools, this regime still exists. And, just like law enforcement, the funding and now emphasis isn't there to provide adequate assistance for family dysfunction and chaos that may be contributing to increase hunger, inadequate supplies and clothing, exhaustion, illness, aggression, developmental delays, and other struggles kids bring into school on a daily basis. All these escalating problems do adversely effect achievement outcomes. And, now it is frustrating to know that many states will be enacting and monitoring what and how teachers present lessons to their students in order to maintain the white man's lies and propaganda to new generations. And it's all based on ignorance. You can't tell me that these very vague and empty guidelines are based on research or the good of the children. It is another way to control the actions of educators in teaching critical thinking skills, facts, and such. Textbooks are bad enough. The amount of errors in grades k-12 textbooks is astounding. I have concluded watching the last decade or so that we are scaring the sh!t out of Republicans with the exploded emphasis on controlling EVERYTHING.
This is like reading the report of a combat veteran and I want to thank you for your service. I hope you are able to apply your deep understanding of the issues of education, which are fundamental to social change—and your feelings of worry—to making your voice heard in support with kindred spirits.
Hello Christi McG…. As I read your very illuminating report, I also thought something when I read this: “Poverty, addictions, abuse, trauma, lack of parenting skills or mental health struggles were never taken into account for children struggling with their education.”
I was in several roles of administration in my district county and participated in a wealth of planning at Title I schools. The elements you mention are among the many things the planning groups considered when restructuring the instruction and grouping to reflect addressing the particular needs of children from homes in generational or situational poverty. We interpreted the NCLB tenets to do exactly that. Know the needs and the resources of these quite often very resilient children. Our eye on assessment was that it is integral to achievement but must be used to drive instruction. We were very careful in our hiring practices looking for teachers with the stamina to work in a Title I School because it is not easy, though very rewarding and such a passionate endeavor. You know what I thought after reading your report? I wish Christi had interviewed at a school where I sat on the hiring committee. She would have received all yes votes.
My applause to your dedication to teaching. Even within the most ill prepared school at meeting real needs of children, there are teachers like you that reach many. I always liked to believe that one teacher in a thriving relationship with one student was like throwing a smooth pebble in a pond and creating concentric ripples that enlarged the size of the pebble’s splash greatly.
Spread the word of what good education looks like. Blessings!
Thank you for the kind words, Christine. I spent 7 years in a behavioral program for struggling elementary children. The next 8 years in a low income rural school. Then the remaining years at a suburban wealthy predominately white school. I had many struggles due to the lack of concern for children who walked in the doors with heavy loads making it a struggle to participate fully and achieve. Then when the testing emphasis hit, but was made much worse. We had one social worker for 700 kids. Special ed had one very part time social worker and a part time psychologist who were to assess and write reports for IEP's and triennial evaluations. No real help for struggling families. After retirement I spent 6 years volunteering in a Title 1 school, and the difference was amazing. Very dedicated teachers, and wonderfully supportive principals, and support staff who worked hard to work with individual needs of kids. All kids ate good healthy food for breakfast, snack, and lunch with backpacks of nourishment for weekends. Even their discipline system was something actually valuable. This was my best experience in all the years of teaching because it is how an educational system works in my opinion. I thank you for all you have done and do for kids in your district.
Christi, thank you for an excellent summary.