History buffs and anyone else: please comment!

[katym]

I'm doing a speech on Historical Amnesia, particularly focusing on George W. Bush.
Basically, we, members of the United States, have become increasingly unaware of our own history at a time (particularly since 9/11) that history is important. We think we know what happened in our nations history, but in all actuality, we're clueless.

This is the basic premise for my speech.
Howerver, I'm a horrible history student, and my interest in politics didnt really begin until 2000. If anyone has any example or idea of historical amnesia that Bush (or any politician for that matter) has shown, please post! Any help is appreciated.

[Maddy McCall]

1. Please pick up James Loewen's book "Lies my Teacher Told me"

It talks about American mythmaking appearing in high school american history textbooks...the First Thanksgiving, Betsy Ross, etc.

A MUST READ. Also, his "Lies Across America"

[Fleshdancer]

9. Odd...I was JUST adding that book to my Amazon wish list...

There's also an interesting book about how other countries teach American history and the discrepancies you see from their viewpoint and our own: History Lessons: How Textbooks from Around the World Portray US History by Dana Lindaman

[DebJ]

24. fantastic book!

[ElsewheresDaughter]

25. a great read and my kids have used it in high school

[HarrietBrown]

29. Great suggestion. The books are enjoyable--a little scary--and very

enlightening. He is a fascinating speaker, too. Very down to earth and inspiring.

[Mikimouse]

2. I suggest that you take a look at...

Maurice Halbwachs' work On Collective Memory (published circa 1940). I think that you might find it valuable.

[Postman]

3. Read books by Howard Zinn

n/t

[maxsolomon]

35. i second that. go get Zinn NOW

people's history of the united states.

readu p on the way the war with mexico, the spanish american war, & ww1 were sold to the people.

we've learned nothing.

[HawkerHurricane]

4. Those who refuse to learn history are doomed to repeat it

Those who do learn history are doomed to say 'I told you so'.

How many times has the U.S. intervened in a foreign country to give them democracy only to fail?

[Postman]

5. That's because "democracy" was never the goal.

the term "democracy" means something different when used by the likes of Bush.

It means open up your country to corporate raiding of natural resources, labor, and banking markets.

I call it fascism.

[MisterP]

22. "History repeats itself: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce"

Marx said that, I believe

[HawkerHurricane]

23. History does not repeat itself

Historians repeat each other.

[Jayster84]

6. The Phillipines

When we fought in the Spanish American War we received the Phillipines. It took us 3 years and thousands of American lives to actually get it under control. Lesson: Occupation and control are two different things.

[katym]

8. good point, hadn't thought of that one nt

[Postman]

10. we "received" the Philippines?

actually the U.S. massacred thousands of Filipinos to get it "under control".

People have a tendency to defend themselves from foreign invaders whether they are Spanish, Americans or whatever.

[Jayster84]

14. We received it from Spain....

getting it under control was our problem. The Filipinos, fought us every step of the way. Second lesson: Empire has costs.

[Postman]

16. Yeah and most of the "costs" are paid by poor brown people.

n/t

[Jayster84]

17. Not arguing that. Not defending that. Just the facts.

I'm just a student of history who sees a terrible parallel between that war and this war.

[katym]

7. Wow --- thanks for all the material ---

If anyone has more, please do post, but a huge THANK YOU to those who already have!

[MGKrebs]

11. New article in Newsweek about our short attention span.

I don't particularly like their conclusions, but it's interesting anyway.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3606145/site/newsweek/

[Nay]

12. I am reading "Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order"

by Mark Crispin Miller, and it had a horrifying passage in it about the one trip Bush ever took to Africa and the speech he made after he visited The Slave House on Goree Island in Senegal. He toured this prison, where slaves were chained up for weeks or months awaiting shipment. This is what Bush says at the airport before he leaves:

"I had the opportunity to go out to Goree Island and talk about what slavery meant to America.It's very interesting when you think about it, the slaves who left here to go to America because of their steadfast and their religion and their belief in freedom, helped change America. America is what it is today because of what went on in the past."

Note: the word "steadfast" in the above paragraph is what he actually said, even though "steadfast" is an adjective and should be followed by a noun, as in "steadfast faith" or "steadfast loyalty."

The next two paragraphs I have typed here are Miller's comments on this speech.

Apparently Bush did not know, or want to know, that "the slaves who left here to go to America" were hauled across the sea against their will. In fact, he even seemed to be suggesting that those Africans dispersed because they were enslaved in Africa, and so "left there to go to America," where they'd be free. And, indeed, those Africans, Bush claimed, helped make make this a free country, by bringing with them "their belief in freedom," which evidently might have been unknown here if the slaves had not imported it. (America would also have no "steadfast" if the Africans had not brought in their own; and, of course, they also came with "their religion," as we can clearly see today, there being so many animist congregations in the United States.)

It is remarkable that any U.S. president would know so little about slavery in America, and it is astonishing that Bush could make so blithe a statement on the subject right after having toured a slavery museum. That establishment's whole point is to commemorate the fate of millions of West Africans who were kept warehoused there, and thence shipped off to the Americas for sale, each one passing through a "Door of No Return," which makes it very clear that they would never see their homes again. Unless he had his eyes closed during the tour, Bush must have simply refused to take the lesson in, such education striking him as pointless, all wrong, unacceptable.

As you can see from Miller's comments here (and in the rest of the book), he is almost beyond outrage at such ignorance. So, get this book if you can -- it has plenty of examples of historical amnesia.

[Radio-Active]

26. Wow..

Do you know if there is a recording of this statement?

[Nay]

30. Maybe a written record, in the NYT archives. The footnotes

in Miller's book identify the speech like this:

"I had the opportunity to go out": Bush to U.S. embassy personnel at Leopold Sedar Senghor International Airport, Dakar, Senegal, 7/8/03. UNESCO maintains an edifying virtual tour of the museum at http://webworld.unesco.org/goree/en/index.shtml.

You may also want to try the home site for the US embassy there, or an online English-language newspaper from that day. Also, there is a presidential/governmental site that keeps track of speeches, but I'll be damned if I know where it is or what it's called.

[coalition_unwilling]

13. Check out what the U.S. Navy did in Beirut in '82

Lobbing high-explosive shells into residential areas. If you really want to know why "they" hate "us" (it ain't our freedom, that's for sure)

[H2O Man]

15. If I were to approach the topic in terms of Bush

I would want to have it start with his lack of appreciation for the Founding Fathers. When they got together, they actually had a number of important differences of opinion. We can look at the Hamiltonian vs Jeffersonian view points, for example, in order to appreciate some of those differences. But even with all the differences, they were able to agree on a significant number of issues: the separation of powers, with three distinct seats of power that were balanced so that no one of them had too much power. The ability to declare/make war was seen as needing to rest with the congress, in order to keep the president from having too much power. In the 20th century, even more than the 19th, presidents from both parties began to encroach on that congressional power .... and it always hurt our constitutional democracy in the long run.

The case could be made that Bush actually did understand this, and there is some evidence that could actually be seen as indicating his move to war was based on wanting more power. However, a far stronger case can be made that his actions show the highest degree of ignorance .... of even his own father's warnings about the consequence of invading Iraq.

There are a number of other interesting examples that would be of great interest. But, for a variety of reasons, the Constitution is of particular interest to me.

[Postman]

18. School of the Americas

training Central American terrorists for capitalism.

[H2O Man]

20. great answer ....

very important.

[GreenPoet64]

19. I think we've all forgotten how * tried to blame Iraq for the anthrax

missives. I remember how some in the administration tried to discredit the scientist who insisted that the anthrax was homegrown and not from Iraq. Does anyone remember her name?

[pretzel4gore]

21. reconstruction.....

perhaps the most wonderful period in US history, demonized relentlesslty by bushevik types ever since....during reconstruction, when northern armies and commanders rules entire south, and the souther tough guys were hide hiding away, a true glimpse of what could have been was presented. Yet today 'carpetbagger' and 'scalawags have become synonyms for conman or thief, when there were in fact true heroes amongs them (govenor Ames and general Butler spring to mind)....what few today know is that more black elected officials were in office during the years immediately following the 'civil war' then at any point in US history until the 1990's! and what the white south did to destroy the black people and put them in their 'place' is mind numbing awful. Another feature lost to the US memory hole is the GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC, an association of UNION veterans which admired Abe Lincoln and tolerated NO BUSHIT regarding the Civil War (note that the Confed Navy Jack, which is the 'flag' that you see all the time, never flew anywhere until long after the GAR disappeared, in early years of the 1900, due to old Union Army men dying out)...Abraham Lincoln has unique status among US president, and that's because of the GAR, which most people, never even heard of .....
"Lies My teacher told me' recounts how pressure groups forced the schoolboards to use the bushit 'columbus was heroic' and so on history books.
btw, i read thousands and thousands of books as a kid, many about history, and i'm constantly amazed at how 'neat' the true history is, and how effective liars have been in creating a steven spielberg, george lucas, disney corp, Times warner etc (racist pricks) bushit version....most of which is popularly accepted as fact: an example of this is the fact buffalo herds were MANAGED by the so called Indian savages up until their society began collapsing after columbus' arrival. The fossil record tells history that by 1800 or so the buffalo numbers grew until white settlers thought they were endless, and slaughtered them relentlessly, not knowing that the 'indians' had maintained the numbers for thousands of years at sustainable levels until disease and disaster put their societies on the deathbed and their role in the world into the ole memory hole ... just like they put the truth about 'reconstruction'

[blindpig]

27. consider the war with Mexico

It was a war of choice, instigated by the Executive Branch for political gain. Provocation of the Mexicans and outright lies to the Congress and American people were the means of execution. The war quickly became unpopular in large parts of the country and the warmongering president was not returned to office.
May history repeat itself.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

28. Vietnam....and you are laughable..

I think the lesson from Vietnam is that some of the strategy and tactics where driven by poltical considerations and there was micromanagmeent by civilians.

That seems to be whats happening in Iraq, where Rumsfeld is playing the "McNamara" roll in interfering with the miltiary, particularly in the postwar planning.

You would have to study up on Vientam and keep informed on the issues surrounding Iraq to understand this.

But, forgive me for saying this, it is sort of laughable that someone who says they know very little of history or politics is going to give a speech on 'historical amnesia" in poltics....If I was you I would not have picked that topic....

[TexasSissy]

31. Bush was a history major!

[patcox2]

32. I don't think Bush's salient characteristic is hist. amnesia.

Its more like the opposite, he is stuck in the past, and unable to adapt to changing circumstances.

He is surrounded by cold-warriors, who want the cold-war back. Condi Rice is an expert on the USSR, a country that no longer exists. They insist that the gravest threat is "state-sponsored terrorism", and refuse to see that a terror organization with no state support can in fact harm us. He is fighting his father's war.

If anything, there is some strong appreciation for and use of historical knowledge in the Bush admin. Read about Rove. he is actually a history buff. He makes references to the nazis, he knows full well he is using their tactics, he has learned his history well.
(Warning, in any speach or paper, avoid the N-word (nazi), do not use the "we have forgotten the lesson of the rise of nazism" or anything like that, it is way way too incendiary an example.)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

33. Vietnam - revisionist history at it's worst.

Now a "noble" venture that was "stabbed in the back" by the anti-war commies.

Also, you can throw in the truth about reconstruction and it's alleged "failure". The truth is that racism overcame the attempt at setting the nation right.

Much, much, more.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

34. Here's what you want:: Report from Mesopotamia (Iraq) Aug. 2, 1920

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/lawrence.php
(T.E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia, wrote back to England to tell them that their occupation of Iraq was a massive failure and they were being lied to about it. Sound familar?)

>snip<

"The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are to-day not far from a disaster."

>snip<

"Meanwhile, our unfortunate troops, Indian and British, under hard conditions of climate and supply, are policing an immense area, paying dearly every day in lives for the wilfully wrong policy of the civil administration in Baghdad."

>snip<

"The Government in Baghdad have been hanging Arabs in that town for political offences, which they call rebellion. The Arabs are not at war with us. Are these illegal executions to provoke the Arabs to reprisals on the three hundred British prisoners they hold? And, if so, is it that their punishment may be more severe, or is it to persuade our other troops to fight to the last?

We say we are in Mesopotamia to develop it for the benefit of the world. All experts say that the labour supply is the ruling factor in its development. How far will the killing of ten thousand villagers and townspeople this summer hinder the production of wheat, cotton, and oil? How long will we permit millions of pounds, thousands of Imperial troops, and tens of thousands of Arabs to be sacrificed on behalf of colonial administration which can benefit nobody but its administrators?"
--------------------------

The history of the US and England carving up the middle east for oil by invading and occupying has been going on for almost a hundred years. See also:
http://www.hermes-press.com/impintro1.htm
(The New US-British Oil Imperialism)

http://www.statecraft.org/
(Instruments of Statecraft U.S. Guerilla Warfare, Counterinsurgency, and Counterterrorism, 1940-1990)
---------------------------

Mark Twain wrote angrily about US imperialism and slaughter in the Phillipines and also the Belqian atrocities in the Congo to acquire rubber in a piece entitled 'King Leopold's Soliliquy.'

http://www.boondocksnet.com/twainwww/
(Mark Twain site)

[PissedOffPollyana]

36. How about the real reasons why Iraqis don't want our "freedom"?

Here is a good start. Very few in the Bush administration choose to remember how Saddam & the Ba'th party took power to begin with.
Quoted from source: "Another very good example of a CIA-organized “regime change” was a coup in 1963 that employed political assassination, mass imprisonment, torture and murder. This was the military coup that first brought Saddam Hussein's beloved Ba'ath Party to power in Iraq. ..."

Background: Qasim (also referred to as Qassim and Kassem) took power in a popularly-backed coup in 1958. He withdrew from the Baghdad Pact, started to nationalize the Iraqi oil industry and decriminalized the Communist Party.

More quoted from source: "In 1959, there was a failed assassination attempt on Qasim. The failed assassin was none other than a young Saddam Hussein. In 1963, a CIA-organized coup did successfully assassinate Qasim and Saddam's Ba'ath Party came to power for the first time. Saddam returned from exile in Egypt and took up the key post as head of Iraq's secret service. The CIA then provided the new pliant, Iraqi regime with the names of thousands of communists, and other leftist activists and organizers. Thousands of these supporters of Qasim and his policies were soon dead in a rampage of mass murder carried out by the CIA's close friends in Iraq."

Saddam soon muscled his way to the top and was further "helped" by the US.

The Saddam in Rumsfeld's Closet - on Common Dreams
Quoted from source: "In March of 1984, with the Iran-Iraq war growing more brutal by the day, Rumsfeld was back in Baghdad for meetings with then-Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. On the day of his visit, March 24th, UPI reported from the United Nations: “Mustard gas laced with a nerve agent has been used on Iranian soldiers in the 43-month Persian Gulf War between Iran and Iraq, a team of U.N. experts has concluded... Meanwhile, in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, U.S. presidential envoy Donald Rumsfeld held talks with Foreign Minister Tarek Aziz (sic) on the Gulf war before leaving for an unspecified destination.” "

scrolling down: "Most glaring is that Donald Rumsfeld was in Iraq as the 1984 UN report was issued and said nothing about the allegations of chemical weapons use, despite State Department “evidence.” On the contrary, The New York Times reported from Baghdad on March 29, 1984, “American diplomats pronounce themselves satisfied with relations between Iraq and the United States and suggest that normal diplomatic ties have been restored in all but name.” "

There are quite a lot of very comprehensive and respected sources for this subject. In my opinion, this is the most relevant piece of "historical amnesia" gripping America and this administration.

They'd like for as many people as possible to not know the extent that the US has betrayed the Iraqi people time and again. They'd like us to think it's because they hate our freedom or some other BS like that. Those who have studied their world & political history (Model UN geeks of America, UNITE!) know better.

Another fun piece of "historical amnesia" is the assertion that they never would have thought of anyone trying to crash a plane into government/financial buildings. I have two words for Condi in reply to that assinine lie: Samuel Byck.