This morning on another site, a commenter replied to one of my posts on the current crisis in Israel and Gaza, asking me why I was pointing out “things that happened a long time ago,” and why I was not concerned about “what’s going on now.” I replied to her: “You cannot understand the present if you do not understand the past.”
As Orwell wrote, "The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
This piece is much-needed, Tom, and you've written it so well. You, Heather Cox Richardson and some others are teaching me (us) so much about American history -- none of which was taught in the high school and university I attended. I'm an expat now, having lived in Vancouver for 50+ years. Living in Canada helped me to gain a different perspective on my original homeland, and I consume American news sparingly, especially since 2016.
Thanks for your penetrating insight and words, Tom!
That "justification" for seizing land that you describe here, Tom, reminded me of a statement made by a USAF base commander I used to commute to some grad classes with after I shared some of my experiences teaching near a Chippewa Reservation in Northern Michigan and encountering a level of subsistence I hadn't seen before. He said to never expect much from the Native Americans because "they have never planted a single flower, not a single flower."
But the tribe has gotten the last laugh and probably a lot of his money because they now own several casinos and resorts around the state and "don't need no stinken flowers." And one of their own became a lawyer and helped them do it. The thing about history is that it isn't over.
Breaks my heart to sit (okay, too creepy to sit, so stand) on the banks of the Tittabawasee River east and south of Dow Chemical Company, where, beginning in the 1950's, my dad as an environmental (then called "sanitary") engineer was responsible for the quality of the water. Always between a rock and a hard place, he kept the state Public Health Department phone number in his wallet. Legend has it that every Friday, Dow served a free fish fry lunch to employees. If workers complained that the fish didn't taste so good, Dad knew the plant had dumped too much toxic chemicals that week. Then there were the weeks when there were no fish to catch. A few years ago I stopped at one of those river banks, signs warning not to fish, the land about looking creepily dead. On a map from the mid 1800s, that land, and the area where the Dow Chemical plant sits, was an Ojibwe (Chippewa) village.
Living up here in Northern Michigan, my Ojibwe husband served as President of the Michigan Indian Confederation in 1975. I remember visiting Native People with him, in squalid homes (one with a dirt floor, but comfortable, and the elder woman so kind and wise), but treated generally as "less thans", in poverty, considered undeserving drunks. What a joy it is today to see the "rise of the red pipe" as the Band's cultural traditionalist described the change casinos and wise investments have brought to The People who always excelled at games and cleverness. And how much they have enriched our region, spiritually as well as monetarily. We CAN do the right thing.
I’ve been doing some ruminating, too--but on more recent events. I’ve decided it’s high time Schumer step down. His politics have become a calculation of self-interest. He stood with thoroughly corrupt individuals: tRump, the Kushner’s, Netanyahu as they orchestrated a deliberately provocative maneuver --moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem--just to garner votes from Conservatives. He stood silent as Israeli troops opened fire on rock-chucking protestors.
And what hypocrisy for Schumer to “remind Americans” that indicted, corrupt Menéndez deserves to be treated “innocent until proven guilty.” That’s rich, coming from a man who spear-headed a witch hunt against Al Franken.
No--Schumer needs to apologize and step down. Of course, he won’t apologize-- They never do, these corrupt, self-satisfied, political hacks. But, in my book, anyone who enables traitors is a traitor, himself.
I share your opinion of many of Schumer’s actions. The Al Franken episode was such a shoot yourself in the foot, tragic misjudgment. Al Franken asked for an investigation. Schumer could have, too. Al could have wiped the floor with Manchin and Sinema, for one thing.
I am almost afraid to go back too far in my family history because within every generation I have learned about, the reprobates are there and whatever their faults and flaws, I most assuredly carry some of that DNA. I can only resolve not to pay it forward and do my utmost to learn from their mistakes - if you can call them that. You point out so well that this country has been and will continue to be a struggle between its light and dark elements. We have our hills and our valleys.
It's amazing what you find when you research your family history. On one side I've got convicts who were shipped to an area of my home state that was a penal colony for the Swedes. On the other I've got "good christians" who were leaders and members of the local chapter of the KKK.
A good read is: "The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: and the Path to a Shared American Future", by Robert P. Jones. It explores The Doctrine of Discovery, a series of three Papal Bulls written between 1452 and 1493, that gave ownership of everything and everyone to Spain and Portugal. It isn't a slip of the keyboard, these edicts literally "gave ownership" of human beings to the European Christians who were doing the inhabitants a favor (😒) by bringing them christianity. As a side note, the last bull was issued by Pope Alexander VI aka Rodrigo Borgia, possibly the most venal corrupt man to occupy the seat of St. Peter.
The Doctrine of Discovery morphed into Manifest Destiny, and the cruelty, bigotry, xenophobia, and misogyny marched on to slavery, Jim Crow, Black Codes, Redlining, and on and on.
What really struck me when I was reading about these Papal edicts was the arrogance. They were "god" and they decided what was best for people who never even heard of them or their version of god. One of the bulls actually stated that non Christians were less than human, only slightly better than animals.
Do you remember the name of the novel about the "return of the Jews to their "native" land"? The author's name was maybe Leon Uris??? I read it more than once - was a really good story(?) of the Jews returning to Israel after World War II.. But I remember reading it & thinking well, where do the people move to that have lived there all these years? Since I was only 10 in 1948 - obviously, I read the book many years after that - likely in my teens. Even way back then - somehow it did not seem all that one sided. Does anyone here recall the name of that book? It escapes me right now.
Just one more example of "so where do the people who lived here before go" - right?
You have pinned the exact center of the tragedy: Justice for people wrongly expelled from their land, and Justice for the people who are there now, are very hard to reconcile.
What makes it worse, is so many people trying to push a 'one side bad, one side good' narrative. Today there are people justifying, and in some places celebrating, the murder of hundreds of civilians, the severe injuries of thousands in terror attacks, as if the very real problems there make mass murder acceptable..
Yeah - they appear not to understand that there is a difference between hamas & the Palestine people in general. Nice of Israel to "warn" women & children to give them a chance to ?? do what - they arent allowed to leave. The wall prevents that!
The real two-state solution would be one state for everyone who wants to live in peace, and one for the extremists on both sides to fight with each other. It's a cascading tragedy: hamas terrorists mass murdered people in Israel - the count is getting close to a thousand dead, thousands injured - and now the retaliation will kill not only hamas, but also many people in Gaza who are as innocent as the ones being retaliated for.
That's the first time I ever thought about that! Like a Coliseum, and throw the extremists from both sides in, and let them battle it out. (I remember thinking, during the VN war that we needed to put Tricky Dick into the ring with Mao and Pol Pot and let them fight it out.)
Excellent. We need to remember, however, to mistrust the "purity" of our line. My mother's family traces itself back to a English settler who came to America in 1632. Makes me a heritage WASP, right?
The family has a whole genealogical book, a necessarily fat one. And the fate of my mother in it is illustrative. SHE is listed--as are her two brothers. But the brother's kids are listed, and myself and my brother show up no-where. In genealogy, women's contributions don't count.
Think about , over the length of time the "family" has been here, how many family-named men married women whose own background is lost in the mists of time. They all funneled into my mother, her father, his father, and ad infinitum or at least 390 odd years. Not just my brother and me, but every freakin named family member, is the descendent through the female line of pretty much everyone, of every condition, including slave, Native American, Indian fighter or abolitionist. There is no way of untangling it.
When I argued elsewhere that America is not a melting pot but a rich stew, I was thinking of culture. In genetic terms, any family who has been here for any length of time is in fact a part of a huge range of now unidentifiable people. (My first generation Irish grandfather married my first generation German grandmother, so that line, in this country, is pretty clear. And both of their parents immigrated around 1850. So "a long time" is more than 100 years for people of my generation. )
(I did a "genetic test" a long time ago that helpfully said my genetic history shows "Middle Eastern" origins, which considering the African Exodus is pretty much the same for the whole world. I'm also the requisite part Neanderthal. No mention of Irish or German or even English. )
When we KNOW who our ancestors are we can choose to emulate those we agree with, as you did. But to claim based on some Big Fat Book that you are a "pure" American is pure bull pucky. We can choose between the Indian Fighter and the abolitionist because of what they were, not because of their DNA.
But you are 100% correct that such a choice is based on the understanding of history.
I read something about that - not the book or the movie - a while ago. Something close to some of the treatment & abuse done to the black towns in the south years ago.
To whom it may interest: I just read “A Brief History on Anti Semitism”, which I googled. It was something everyone should read. It only takes about 15 minutes. It scares me beyond words to know some human beings are this depraved and sick, and always have been!
I think this may be what you refer to. It's a pdf titled "A Brief History of Antisemitism", published by the Anti-Defamation League. It's 6 pages in length. https://www.adl.org › sites › default › files › brief-history-of-antisemitism.pdf Readers may need to copy & paste the full url.
And the lesson for us today ... History is gaining on us. The question then is Once it rolls over us, where will our justification come from for staying in the same lane that leaves us receding into the same place as other grand follies have? I really hope that instead, we live up to the truth, live with it, do better going forward.
Like you, I have deep U.S. ancestry, with a swatch of Indigenous which got swirled in in those crazy early Jamestown years. I look for the good (such as your Quaker grandparents.) I accept the not-good (my many enslaving Virginian forebears.) Heaven knows I have no interest in whitewashing it. Good thoughts.
It's good to look at the truth of history, what really happened instead of the myths we were taught. In the past 15 years I've learned more true history than I ever learned in school. I learned myth shattering things about my local and state history. So many people are afraid of the truth. I learned the truth because I went looking for it.
So very, very true! Unfortunately, many simply don’t understand why the past matters, or, if they do, they try to hide it. Good for you for speaking out, and for confronting your own history.
This, TC, moved me more than all your essays and I love them all.
My late husband held me tight as I screamed at the news we were invading Iraq for 911. WTF?! How have we learned NOTHING?! It took 6 months to read the daily obituaries of the lives lost on 911, those families who lost an unimaginable amount. Tears upon tears throughout our Country but for what?! The Iraqis have lost an even more unimaginable amount, that continues to this day 22 years later.
My beloved was a lover of History especially ancient. He always talked about the human condition. He used to say human beings will get everything they deserve. He was not optimistic but I refuse to give up hope. Love Will Prevail has always been my mantra but damn it gets harder every day.
I would add the following. One is that I tell my students, history happens chronologically but not in order. One event follows another, but that doesn't mean something in the distant past didn't have a bigger effect than something in the immediate past.
Another is that when people tell historians to stick to the facts, I say, which facts? And choosing the facts is in itself an act of interpretation.
Now, I can and do fault Israel. Don't get me wrong. But I don't think Hamas and Iran did themselves any favors. I remember Bill Clinton talking about how they thought they had a deal at one point and suddenly Yassir Arafat went off the beam, and we're still here. That said ... I find it ironic that Israel has a leader who would have been so comfortable in the 1930s.
"[H]istory happens chronologically but not in order. One event follows another, but that doesn't mean something in the distant past didn't have a bigger effect than something in the immediate past." Beautiful! Your students are beyond fortunate to have you as a professor!!
Well, thanks. I do mainly 19th century US and Nevada/Las Vegas stuff since, yeah, I'm in Las Vegas. I used to do a course on the Supreme Court, but I haven't for a few years because I wasn't sure I could keep from cussing. :)
LOL!!! I have to admit that I only took one course in U.S. History, because I knew that I would be reading it myself. It was a small seminar led by a wonderful history prof (at UNC) on the Spanish American War and Pres. McKinley. There was no such thing as a World History at the time (early 1970's), so I cobbled my own together. It meant taking a class in Buddhism (for China) + studying Chinese; it meant studying British Imperialism for India; it meant geography for Africa; plus four Russian history classes + studying Russian. I took all of the "usual" (fabulous profs) three courses on European history. Then another on the Industrial Revolution in England, and what turned out, shockingly (because I hated Science at that time), to be a favorite: the History of Science, a one-year course. Now, happily, their is a World History major at UNC. YAY!
Thanks for this post, TC. Let me amplify your point by saying we cannot understand the present, because invariably some gross injustice that was covered up by the powers that were in the past fails to become part of the information passed on to future generations so that what's perceived further up the road is a lie and that's just how the fascist oligarchs like it. The Orange Menace employs that strategy on a daily basis with his sickening Truth Social posts.
Luckily, we have websites like this one where the information is based on evidence about how what the reader sees in the present moment got the way it is. It's amazing how bogus most media has become in the Age of Moronity ushered in by the Republicans in their relentless quest to destroy democracy. It's also interesting that Henry Ford, who famously quipped that "history is bunk," ran for president as a Republican, and according to Google, "used his vast resources and influence in a sustained campaign to spread bigotry and conspiracy thinking throughout American society. Ford consistently refused to employ Jews in while-color jobs within his companies, and he was a supporter of various antisemitic organizations, including the KKK." I don't remember ever reading that about good old Henry in any of my high school or college history classes. The upshot is that what's going on in America right now is the direct result of the "bunk" disseminated by fascists like Ford. The same "bunk" is also distorting the Truth about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I learned an interesting item about Henry Ford when I visited the Henry Ford museum and Greenfield Village. There was a replica of the car where Henry had built his first car. He had to tear down one side of the garage in order to get the car out because the garage door was too small. Henry was not worker friendly either; he thought workers were lazy. Very flawed, complex person.
Interestingly enough, to add to the complexity, he was also the first to pay his workers a living wage. He shocked the industry in 1914 when he raised the minimum wage in his factory to $5/day. He also said that if the people who made his cars couldn't afford to buy one, he was doing something wrong.
Indoctrination has its claws in shredding that truth of understanding the present if you understand the past. It’s why I deplore the book banning and the racist babble as Desantis and his “it’s ok boss” minstrels of a legislature bury history under their own territorial sh*t.
And that reviewer of your book that wrote to get clicks? F*ck off. Get some substance in one’s thinking instead of thinking of the ways to insert the lame concept of “woke” in one’s prattle.
66 million years ago our ancestors were rodents. We kill each other, we love each other. It’s what we do. The precarious existence of our Republic is a fucking miracle.
As Orwell wrote, "The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
This piece is much-needed, Tom, and you've written it so well. You, Heather Cox Richardson and some others are teaching me (us) so much about American history -- none of which was taught in the high school and university I attended. I'm an expat now, having lived in Vancouver for 50+ years. Living in Canada helped me to gain a different perspective on my original homeland, and I consume American news sparingly, especially since 2016.
Thanks for your penetrating insight and words, Tom!
That "justification" for seizing land that you describe here, Tom, reminded me of a statement made by a USAF base commander I used to commute to some grad classes with after I shared some of my experiences teaching near a Chippewa Reservation in Northern Michigan and encountering a level of subsistence I hadn't seen before. He said to never expect much from the Native Americans because "they have never planted a single flower, not a single flower."
But the tribe has gotten the last laugh and probably a lot of his money because they now own several casinos and resorts around the state and "don't need no stinken flowers." And one of their own became a lawyer and helped them do it. The thing about history is that it isn't over.
Yes!
"Never planted"??? I'm thinking it was unnecessary - they didnt plow the soil, clearcut forests, pollute rivers - need I go on???
Breaks my heart to sit (okay, too creepy to sit, so stand) on the banks of the Tittabawasee River east and south of Dow Chemical Company, where, beginning in the 1950's, my dad as an environmental (then called "sanitary") engineer was responsible for the quality of the water. Always between a rock and a hard place, he kept the state Public Health Department phone number in his wallet. Legend has it that every Friday, Dow served a free fish fry lunch to employees. If workers complained that the fish didn't taste so good, Dad knew the plant had dumped too much toxic chemicals that week. Then there were the weeks when there were no fish to catch. A few years ago I stopped at one of those river banks, signs warning not to fish, the land about looking creepily dead. On a map from the mid 1800s, that land, and the area where the Dow Chemical plant sits, was an Ojibwe (Chippewa) village.
And that last sentence says it all, doesnt it? Like what communities are "graced" with the polluting industries, refineries, etc now?
😣😔💔
Living up here in Northern Michigan, my Ojibwe husband served as President of the Michigan Indian Confederation in 1975. I remember visiting Native People with him, in squalid homes (one with a dirt floor, but comfortable, and the elder woman so kind and wise), but treated generally as "less thans", in poverty, considered undeserving drunks. What a joy it is today to see the "rise of the red pipe" as the Band's cultural traditionalist described the change casinos and wise investments have brought to The People who always excelled at games and cleverness. And how much they have enriched our region, spiritually as well as monetarily. We CAN do the right thing.
Yeah - we can do the right thing or in many cases, we could do the right thing.
Wonderful, uplifting story! Thank you so much, MaryPat! (And boy! did I need that today!)
I’ve been doing some ruminating, too--but on more recent events. I’ve decided it’s high time Schumer step down. His politics have become a calculation of self-interest. He stood with thoroughly corrupt individuals: tRump, the Kushner’s, Netanyahu as they orchestrated a deliberately provocative maneuver --moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem--just to garner votes from Conservatives. He stood silent as Israeli troops opened fire on rock-chucking protestors.
And what hypocrisy for Schumer to “remind Americans” that indicted, corrupt Menéndez deserves to be treated “innocent until proven guilty.” That’s rich, coming from a man who spear-headed a witch hunt against Al Franken.
No--Schumer needs to apologize and step down. Of course, he won’t apologize-- They never do, these corrupt, self-satisfied, political hacks. But, in my book, anyone who enables traitors is a traitor, himself.
I share your opinion of many of Schumer’s actions. The Al Franken episode was such a shoot yourself in the foot, tragic misjudgment. Al Franken asked for an investigation. Schumer could have, too. Al could have wiped the floor with Manchin and Sinema, for one thing.
I am almost afraid to go back too far in my family history because within every generation I have learned about, the reprobates are there and whatever their faults and flaws, I most assuredly carry some of that DNA. I can only resolve not to pay it forward and do my utmost to learn from their mistakes - if you can call them that. You point out so well that this country has been and will continue to be a struggle between its light and dark elements. We have our hills and our valleys.
It's amazing what you find when you research your family history. On one side I've got convicts who were shipped to an area of my home state that was a penal colony for the Swedes. On the other I've got "good christians" who were leaders and members of the local chapter of the KKK.
A good read is: "The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: and the Path to a Shared American Future", by Robert P. Jones. It explores The Doctrine of Discovery, a series of three Papal Bulls written between 1452 and 1493, that gave ownership of everything and everyone to Spain and Portugal. It isn't a slip of the keyboard, these edicts literally "gave ownership" of human beings to the European Christians who were doing the inhabitants a favor (😒) by bringing them christianity. As a side note, the last bull was issued by Pope Alexander VI aka Rodrigo Borgia, possibly the most venal corrupt man to occupy the seat of St. Peter.
The Doctrine of Discovery morphed into Manifest Destiny, and the cruelty, bigotry, xenophobia, and misogyny marched on to slavery, Jim Crow, Black Codes, Redlining, and on and on.
Yeah, all of that. The entitled hubris of "Christian" Europeans is constantly amazing.
What really struck me when I was reading about these Papal edicts was the arrogance. They were "god" and they decided what was best for people who never even heard of them or their version of god. One of the bulls actually stated that non Christians were less than human, only slightly better than animals.
Do you remember the name of the novel about the "return of the Jews to their "native" land"? The author's name was maybe Leon Uris??? I read it more than once - was a really good story(?) of the Jews returning to Israel after World War II.. But I remember reading it & thinking well, where do the people move to that have lived there all these years? Since I was only 10 in 1948 - obviously, I read the book many years after that - likely in my teens. Even way back then - somehow it did not seem all that one sided. Does anyone here recall the name of that book? It escapes me right now.
Just one more example of "so where do the people who lived here before go" - right?
The book was titled "Exodus".
I think I’ll read that again.
You have pinned the exact center of the tragedy: Justice for people wrongly expelled from their land, and Justice for the people who are there now, are very hard to reconcile.
Joan, justice never seems to come into the thinking when these tragedies happen. somewhat more one-sided than that.
What makes it worse, is so many people trying to push a 'one side bad, one side good' narrative. Today there are people justifying, and in some places celebrating, the murder of hundreds of civilians, the severe injuries of thousands in terror attacks, as if the very real problems there make mass murder acceptable..
Yeah - they appear not to understand that there is a difference between hamas & the Palestine people in general. Nice of Israel to "warn" women & children to give them a chance to ?? do what - they arent allowed to leave. The wall prevents that!
The real two-state solution would be one state for everyone who wants to live in peace, and one for the extremists on both sides to fight with each other. It's a cascading tragedy: hamas terrorists mass murdered people in Israel - the count is getting close to a thousand dead, thousands injured - and now the retaliation will kill not only hamas, but also many people in Gaza who are as innocent as the ones being retaliated for.
That's the first time I ever thought about that! Like a Coliseum, and throw the extremists from both sides in, and let them battle it out. (I remember thinking, during the VN war that we needed to put Tricky Dick into the ring with Mao and Pol Pot and let them fight it out.)
Excellent. We need to remember, however, to mistrust the "purity" of our line. My mother's family traces itself back to a English settler who came to America in 1632. Makes me a heritage WASP, right?
The family has a whole genealogical book, a necessarily fat one. And the fate of my mother in it is illustrative. SHE is listed--as are her two brothers. But the brother's kids are listed, and myself and my brother show up no-where. In genealogy, women's contributions don't count.
Think about , over the length of time the "family" has been here, how many family-named men married women whose own background is lost in the mists of time. They all funneled into my mother, her father, his father, and ad infinitum or at least 390 odd years. Not just my brother and me, but every freakin named family member, is the descendent through the female line of pretty much everyone, of every condition, including slave, Native American, Indian fighter or abolitionist. There is no way of untangling it.
When I argued elsewhere that America is not a melting pot but a rich stew, I was thinking of culture. In genetic terms, any family who has been here for any length of time is in fact a part of a huge range of now unidentifiable people. (My first generation Irish grandfather married my first generation German grandmother, so that line, in this country, is pretty clear. And both of their parents immigrated around 1850. So "a long time" is more than 100 years for people of my generation. )
(I did a "genetic test" a long time ago that helpfully said my genetic history shows "Middle Eastern" origins, which considering the African Exodus is pretty much the same for the whole world. I'm also the requisite part Neanderthal. No mention of Irish or German or even English. )
When we KNOW who our ancestors are we can choose to emulate those we agree with, as you did. But to claim based on some Big Fat Book that you are a "pure" American is pure bull pucky. We can choose between the Indian Fighter and the abolitionist because of what they were, not because of their DNA.
But you are 100% correct that such a choice is based on the understanding of history.
100% right, Susan.
Thank you very much, Tom.
Your header is 100% dead on.
History is always in our rear view mirror. Always.
As someone said "history is written by the winners". Aint that the truth.
I wonder what history I would find by visiting a Native American library?
I bet there would be something about the subject of "Killers of a Flower Moon" - among many many many others.
Looking forward to that movie when it hits theaters on October 20. They shot it at many of the actual locations of the events in the book.
I read something about that - not the book or the movie - a while ago. Something close to some of the treatment & abuse done to the black towns in the south years ago.
To whom it may interest: I just read “A Brief History on Anti Semitism”, which I googled. It was something everyone should read. It only takes about 15 minutes. It scares me beyond words to know some human beings are this depraved and sick, and always have been!
I posted the link on Substack home page. I don’t know if it can be seen by others though.
I think this may be what you refer to. It's a pdf titled "A Brief History of Antisemitism", published by the Anti-Defamation League. It's 6 pages in length. https://www.adl.org › sites › default › files › brief-history-of-antisemitism.pdf Readers may need to copy & paste the full url.
Thank you, Judith.
And the lesson for us today ... History is gaining on us. The question then is Once it rolls over us, where will our justification come from for staying in the same lane that leaves us receding into the same place as other grand follies have? I really hope that instead, we live up to the truth, live with it, do better going forward.
Thoughtful and well told Thank you.
Like you, I have deep U.S. ancestry, with a swatch of Indigenous which got swirled in in those crazy early Jamestown years. I look for the good (such as your Quaker grandparents.) I accept the not-good (my many enslaving Virginian forebears.) Heaven knows I have no interest in whitewashing it. Good thoughts.
It's good to look at the truth of history, what really happened instead of the myths we were taught. In the past 15 years I've learned more true history than I ever learned in school. I learned myth shattering things about my local and state history. So many people are afraid of the truth. I learned the truth because I went looking for it.
So very, very true! Unfortunately, many simply don’t understand why the past matters, or, if they do, they try to hide it. Good for you for speaking out, and for confronting your own history.
This, TC, moved me more than all your essays and I love them all.
My late husband held me tight as I screamed at the news we were invading Iraq for 911. WTF?! How have we learned NOTHING?! It took 6 months to read the daily obituaries of the lives lost on 911, those families who lost an unimaginable amount. Tears upon tears throughout our Country but for what?! The Iraqis have lost an even more unimaginable amount, that continues to this day 22 years later.
My beloved was a lover of History especially ancient. He always talked about the human condition. He used to say human beings will get everything they deserve. He was not optimistic but I refuse to give up hope. Love Will Prevail has always been my mantra but damn it gets harder every day.
Yes, I got SO hoarse screaming at the TV with the news we were invading Iraq after 9-11 Have we learned nothing...
As a history professor, how could I disagree?
I would add the following. One is that I tell my students, history happens chronologically but not in order. One event follows another, but that doesn't mean something in the distant past didn't have a bigger effect than something in the immediate past.
Another is that when people tell historians to stick to the facts, I say, which facts? And choosing the facts is in itself an act of interpretation.
Now, I can and do fault Israel. Don't get me wrong. But I don't think Hamas and Iran did themselves any favors. I remember Bill Clinton talking about how they thought they had a deal at one point and suddenly Yassir Arafat went off the beam, and we're still here. That said ... I find it ironic that Israel has a leader who would have been so comfortable in the 1930s.
"[H]istory happens chronologically but not in order. One event follows another, but that doesn't mean something in the distant past didn't have a bigger effect than something in the immediate past." Beautiful! Your students are beyond fortunate to have you as a professor!!
Well, that's very kind of you. Thank you. Of course, whether they agree may depend on the grading I'm about to do!
Just to have that thought in mind (potentially/hopefully) for the rest of their lives is an enormous gift. What area of History do you focus on?
Well, thanks. I do mainly 19th century US and Nevada/Las Vegas stuff since, yeah, I'm in Las Vegas. I used to do a course on the Supreme Court, but I haven't for a few years because I wasn't sure I could keep from cussing. :)
LOL!!! I have to admit that I only took one course in U.S. History, because I knew that I would be reading it myself. It was a small seminar led by a wonderful history prof (at UNC) on the Spanish American War and Pres. McKinley. There was no such thing as a World History at the time (early 1970's), so I cobbled my own together. It meant taking a class in Buddhism (for China) + studying Chinese; it meant studying British Imperialism for India; it meant geography for Africa; plus four Russian history classes + studying Russian. I took all of the "usual" (fabulous profs) three courses on European history. Then another on the Industrial Revolution in England, and what turned out, shockingly (because I hated Science at that time), to be a favorite: the History of Science, a one-year course. Now, happily, their is a World History major at UNC. YAY!
Happily, there's a lot more good stuff now being taught!
No f@#$ing kidding. Would LOVE to be in your history class! Thanks for that insight.
Thank you!
Thanks for this post, TC. Let me amplify your point by saying we cannot understand the present, because invariably some gross injustice that was covered up by the powers that were in the past fails to become part of the information passed on to future generations so that what's perceived further up the road is a lie and that's just how the fascist oligarchs like it. The Orange Menace employs that strategy on a daily basis with his sickening Truth Social posts.
Luckily, we have websites like this one where the information is based on evidence about how what the reader sees in the present moment got the way it is. It's amazing how bogus most media has become in the Age of Moronity ushered in by the Republicans in their relentless quest to destroy democracy. It's also interesting that Henry Ford, who famously quipped that "history is bunk," ran for president as a Republican, and according to Google, "used his vast resources and influence in a sustained campaign to spread bigotry and conspiracy thinking throughout American society. Ford consistently refused to employ Jews in while-color jobs within his companies, and he was a supporter of various antisemitic organizations, including the KKK." I don't remember ever reading that about good old Henry in any of my high school or college history classes. The upshot is that what's going on in America right now is the direct result of the "bunk" disseminated by fascists like Ford. The same "bunk" is also distorting the Truth about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I learned an interesting item about Henry Ford when I visited the Henry Ford museum and Greenfield Village. There was a replica of the car where Henry had built his first car. He had to tear down one side of the garage in order to get the car out because the garage door was too small. Henry was not worker friendly either; he thought workers were lazy. Very flawed, complex person.
Interestingly enough, to add to the complexity, he was also the first to pay his workers a living wage. He shocked the industry in 1914 when he raised the minimum wage in his factory to $5/day. He also said that if the people who made his cars couldn't afford to buy one, he was doing something wrong.
Henry was a paradox for sure.
Thanks for that note, Jenn.
Yes. You are absolutely correct, TC.
Indoctrination has its claws in shredding that truth of understanding the present if you understand the past. It’s why I deplore the book banning and the racist babble as Desantis and his “it’s ok boss” minstrels of a legislature bury history under their own territorial sh*t.
And that reviewer of your book that wrote to get clicks? F*ck off. Get some substance in one’s thinking instead of thinking of the ways to insert the lame concept of “woke” in one’s prattle.
Salud, TC.
🗽💜
66 million years ago our ancestors were rodents. We kill each other, we love each other. It’s what we do. The precarious existence of our Republic is a fucking miracle.