Legacy of Mythological Patriotism from the Southern Gulag
That few people in America even know the facts that Blackmon documents in my earlier post is astonishing--but this reflects a toxic "patriotic" denial of truths about American history that we see in contemporary politics today.
In fact, the core facts of continuing slavery in the South were repeatedly investigated and, for a short time starting in 1903, the federal government brought indictments over the issue with cases going to the Supreme Court--but the court proceedings came under such assault by southern politicians that they were shut down, all in a hail of denial of the problems of not just 20th century slavery but of the pre-Civil War version as well. The following quote sums it up:
As the twentieth century neared, though, the orthodoxy of southern patriotism was mutating virulently...The South now demanded in public forums an increasingly rabid level of absolute adherence to a baroque new mythology of the honorable southerner, the contented slave, and the tragically defeated secession.In this, we see the same toxic DNA that twists any criticism of the government policy into hatred of government--and the metaphorical kissing of the flag that Michelle Obama was forced into.
Michelle Obama's comments that indicated that there was much in America's past NOT to be proud of was a direct assault on this patriotic denial of memory. We can't discuss the fact that U.S. mass murder and ethnic cleansing of the native American population ranks as one of the worst crimes against humanity of the last two centuries, just as the persistence of slavery in the U.S. and its mutated form as Blackmon documents was a international crime that ranks with the worst of nations of the world.
All such discussions must be telescoped as far into history and the facts downplayed as much as possible in order to maintain not only a presumption of U.S. virtue in international affairs, but is also critical to maintaining conservative policy domestically. For to continually defend the past-- low taxes, "rugged individualism", "states rights" and so on -- you have to ignore the state-supported genocide and slavery that underpinned those old conservative values.
Almost everyone on the Left readily condemns Stalinism and its crimes, yet the Confederate flag still flies in many states and conservatives defend the right of those states to fly a flag that oversaw crimes as bad as Hitler's and Stalin's.
The toxic brand of patriotism that requires denial of the past is still all too prevalent in our politics. Hopefully, Blackmon's book will contribute in a small way to helping overcome it.
@ Newman
I'm sure that's true. Nor was this prosecutorial effort TRs only courageous move towards racial justice; He dined at the White House with Booker T. Washington, for which he also took a great deal of shit.
The problem with your interpretation is that it doesn't deal with the attitudes of northerners. Where were they while all this was happening?
Who says? It's been discussed for at least a century. Hitler referred to it as an inspiration for his racial policies. The '60s saw the publication of numerous books on the subject, from screed to scholarly.
And the simple fact is that you're full of shit about it. The British and United States governments at times took numerous actions to try to protect the Indians but were unwilling to go as far as shooting, or imprisoning in numbers, their own people who were desperately hungry for land. Nor do you have anything to say about the tremendous effects of disease, or about the impossibility of the simultaneous existance of a primitive hunting and gathering society with a modern one, or similar actions by the Spanish in their colonizing efforts, or real comparisons between what Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and others did.
It turns out you're not a serious scholar. You're just another leftie America hater.
September 1, 2008 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seriously? This is your response? You're just engaging in the same old excuses:
"The British and United States governments at times took numerous actions to try to protect the Indians"
Sure, you can point to a few instances of good actions, but the reality is that official legal action by the U.S. was to steal the land, break treaties, and pass "Indian Removal" acts -- the official name for the law under Andrew Jackson -- to drive native Americans out of their lands. And the Supreme Court, with a few weak exceptions, largely endorsed the theft of lands. And guess what, many of the Native Americans were in farming communities and were farming alongside initial settlers until they were driven from their lands.
But your apologia for genocide above illustrates my points, including you calling me a "leftie America hater." Inevitably, even the discussion of the past brings out the usual McCarthyite and patriotic breastbeating. Thanks for illustrating my point so well.
And where did I just condemn Southerners. I noted explicitly in the original post that NORTHERN CAPITALISTS were integral to and benefitted from the Southern slave system, so of course there was an interest in North and South to suppress discussion of the system. The problem of memory suppression was quite national.
September 1, 2008 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ Newman
Seriously? That's your response. "NORTHERN CAPITALISTS were intergral to the southern slave system"...the reality is that official legal action by the U.S. was to steal the land, break treaties, and pass "Indian Removal" acts -- the official name for the law under Andrew Jackson -- to drive native Americans out of their lands. And the Supreme Court, with a few weak exceptions, largely endorsed the theft of lands"?
I guess you didn't really read, or understand, my response; no government could stand against the land hunger of the people. ALL the people. Not just "the capitalists" of your fairy tale. Why do you think immigrants flocked to our shores in such numbers? Why do you think land and gold rushes were so well attended?
Nor do you deal with the issue of disease, or of the impossibility of coexistance of two very different cultures, a problem which has existed all the time and everywhere. And you so easily equate removing Indians from their lands with deliberate murder of millions.
You couldn't do that if you weren't an America hater.
September 1, 2008 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
offensivetoyou asks;
Nathan said:
offensivetoyou said:
WOW, great pivot, he answered your question and you applied his answer to a different equation in a vain attempt to prove your point. heh heh heh.
Neat.
September 1, 2008 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
He is going from the sublime to the ridiculous John...would that make him sublimely and brilliantly ridiculous?
People like OTY also like to argue that the exception is the rule...I am waiting for that tact next.
September 1, 2008 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Libertine, :-)
when he's put in a corner he tries to subtly change the subject that got him there. He's a great pivot man. (elbow elbow)
September 1, 2008 8:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Libertine, :-)
when he's put in a corner he tries to subtly change the subject that got him there. He's a great pivot man. (elbow elbow)
September 1, 2008 8:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Libertine,
truly :-)
When he's cornered he tries to slither out by subtly taking a different direction. (elbow elbow)
September 1, 2008 9:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are certainly correct about all the horrors visited on Native Americans and acts of good will on the part of the US government were few and far between (the British in Canada were somewhat better-- but only somewhat). However you're wrong to say that these things cannot be discussed. that may have been true 60 years ago, but it is certainly not true today. History books, including chool textbooks, discuss this openly. TV shows like "Into The West" and even "Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman" have portrayed specific masacres in grim (if a bit fictionalized) detail.
September 1, 2008 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nathan,
"Mythological Patriotism"
WOW, what an excellent term, it describes so well many of the modern day wingnuts on the right.
September 1, 2008 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do we as Americans have a need or even a duty to remember the past, no matter how painful and ugly it may be? Douglas Blackmon
September 1, 2008 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Admiring TR and the modern republican party at the same time is a truly astonishing example of rhetorical acrobatics. Not sure how you can reconcile the two as they have absolutely nothing in common. The last real republican to sit in the Oval Office was Ike, maybe Nixon during his first term.
September 1, 2008 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
JasonEM said;
Admiring TR and the modern republican party at the same time is a truly astonishing example of rhetorical acrobatics.
Jason, excellent comment, as is the rest of your post.
September 1, 2008 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ JasonEverettMiller
What are you talking about and why is it on this thread?
September 1, 2008 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mirror, mirror on the wall....
September 1, 2008 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Not sure how you can reconcile the two as they have absolutely nothing in common.
Well, um, TR had an almost Neocon attitude toward foreign policy. Now sure, there were a lot of other empires that blocked America's ability to indulge in an appetite for empire, but where America could flex it muscles it did. TR was a huge cheerleader for the Spanish-American War (and made his reputation at San Juan Hill-- at least he wasn't a chicken hawk). And then there was the whole Panama Canal business.
September 1, 2008 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not saying he was perfect by any stretch, but he was much more progressive than the modern republican party and didn't go out of his way to use the power of his office to benefit the rich and powerful. He was the antithesis of the modern GOP.
At worst, TR was Johnson or Kennedy or FDR in terms of America's imperial ambitions abroad while pushing for progressive reforms at home.
He also learned a lot from those earlier episodes in life, so much so that he challenged a sitting president for the nomination because of the rapaciousness that he saw coming in both parties getting cozy with corporate interests. When that didn't work, he formed his own Progressive (Bull Moose) Party and was defeated by a democrat who derided him as a socialist.
TR seems to have learned from his mistakes in a way that modern republicans (and democrats) refuse to do.
September 1, 2008 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Czar Reed had a distinctly different point of view on Roosevelt than we have since TR's canonization. He's an interesting character, no doubt. But he was imperialist to the core. And, Reed, ego problems aside, knew exactly where he wanted to take this country.
September 1, 2008 4:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think TR in his later years was any more of an imperialist than FDR or Kennedy. I also don't think he was a saint, though perhaps closer to one than any modern republican president since Ike.
Teddy seemed to have chilled considerably in the years after his presidency and when he formed the progressive party. I had not heard of "Czar Reed" before. There's another interesting character out of the history books that gets no play.
I guess my main point is that the republicans and the democrats have both villains and heroes in their historic ranks, often in the form of the same person.
September 1, 2008 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or as Uncle Joe -- that's Cannon not Stalin -- said, "[Theodore Roosevelt had] no more use for the Constitution than a tomcat has for a marriage license."
September 1, 2008 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ Ellen
So what? Newman has just finished two long articles on the shortcomings of the legal system and you want to hold TR's feet to the fire for his perception of same and his willingness to take drastic action?
September 1, 2008 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Roosevelt lied about his particpation in the charge up San Juan Hill. It's a myth.
September 1, 2008 4:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ anna am
Now where did you get that?
September 1, 2008 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
OTY...4 words for you.
The Trail of Tears.
September 1, 2008 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
It turns out you're not a serious scholar. You're just another leftie America hater.
And OTY...in these 2 sentences you just made Nathan's point for him. Good work.
September 1, 2008 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Libertine,
Irony is lost on OTY. :-)
September 1, 2008 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why am I not surprised John. ;-)
But what OTY just said to Nathan reminds me of McCain saying that Obama puts personal ambition above the country's best interests by not fully supporting the war in Iraq.
And I am betting this will be lost on OTY too.
September 1, 2008 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ libertine
You forgot to elbow each other because you were so overwhelmed with the subtlety of your brilliance.
September 1, 2008 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the compliment OTY.
But in this case your sublime brilliance was on display as you deftly made Nathan's point without even realizing it...and that brilliance on your part is part of the reason why I kinda like having you around. Your rant about specifics that were tangential to Nathan's main point that blind devotion to country and flag twists history and has the ultimate effect of allowing current politicians to stifle debate and discourse. If America has never been wrong in the past the can't be wrong now, right? Its all about the lapel flag pins, National Anthem etiquette and whether a person has a 'support the troops' sticker on the back of their vehicle...but, God forbid, never criticize your government, they're always right.
September 1, 2008 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Libertine said:
its known as "putting your foot in your mouth"
:-)
September 1, 2008 4:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ libertine
Some people's devotion to country is blind. Mine isn't. Nathan's ability to notice that some people's bias causes them to twist history doesn't prevent him from twisting in response to his own blindness, his own bias.
Your irony is about as subtle as a turd on a sheet.
September 1, 2008 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well turd on a sheet is what you are serving up OTY...
September 1, 2008 11:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ libertine
Putting it in a less subtle way which you can understand; The denial of just criticism doesn't imply that all criticism is justified.
September 1, 2008 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is not the dispute of/denial of criticism I have a problem with it is the way it is done...
September 1, 2008 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
hater
noun
a person who hates
WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
September 1, 2008 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hater
Hat"er\, n. One who hates.
An enemy to God, and a hater of all good. --Sir T. Browne.
September 1, 2008 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
"You're just another America leftie hater."
Interesting in that Lenin hated liberals and social democrats (and American capitalism.) It's interesting because if one was a liberal, one would never be allowed to join the Communist Party so that individual could not be a 'leftie' if leftie means a socialist/communist. According to Lenin who among others started this whole thing it is impossible to be a liberal and a communist/socialist.
Suggests that maybe you'd better drop 'leftie' and simply call the object of your contempt an America hater. Perhaps a liberal America hater? But then that presents a problem because America herself is a liberal idea. What a magnificent muddle.
September 1, 2008 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ phelicity
I don't think so. The Left's position on Communism was clear throughout the '30s, '40s, and '50s despite Lenin's contemptuous dismissal of most of them as "useful idiots". Currently, they've progressed somewhat...to the status of useless idiots.
September 1, 2008 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ phelicity
Also, the meaning of "liberal" has changed quite a bit since Lenin's day. A liberal in his time meant a laissez-faire capitalist.
September 1, 2008 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
@OTY
You only get 40% credit on this one, sir; I know you can do better than that, you have commented before on the quality of your educational opportunities. You know very well that laisez-faire capitalism was a small component of the philosophical framework that Stalin tried to kill during his reign of terror. Stalin really disliked: Those who stand for free enterprise, legal protection of private property, rule of law (rather than party oligarchs), and less concentrated government power.
Lenin may have wanted to try communism just before or early in the revolution, but that idea went away nearly instantly. Stalin didn't for one millisecond practice communism. The only substantial difference between Russian/Soviet "communism" and feudalism is that the Russians didn't bother to arrange a power-sharing alliance with the Church. The party controlled all levers of power both economic and political.
I was not present for the "useful idiots" phase of American minor dalliance with socialism, but it always seemed more like a desire to ensure labor had a greater role sharing in the benefits of America's productive capacity and deciding what the priorities were.
I think Phelicity is basically correct: Drop the word "lefty" since it doesn't apply here. Referring to "left" in this context is an intentional conflation with those of us who are tired of paying too much for inadequate, inefficient service from our financial and political elites.
September 1, 2008 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ lenski
I'll drop the cant when others drop it.
You want to talk about labor issues, fiscal policy, the wisdom of the current war, its tactics and strategy? Talk.
But when I hear talk about "Mythological Patriotism", "mass murder and ethnic cleansing", "the worst crimes against humanity of the last two centuries", on and on like that, I know that I'm either talking to a person of genius or a damned fool...
...and Nathan Newman is no genius.
September 1, 2008 7:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
re: lenski - "Stalin didn't for one millisecond practice communism." If I remember wasn't it he who had 'workers-of-the-world-unite' Trotsky killed in Mexico?
None of this would make a helluvalot of difference except that labels like 'socialism' or 'leftie' are thrown out at any individual, any political, social or economic program that the powers-that-be want shut-up or squelched and in the end the labels alone are all that are needed to stop any possible discussion of the real issue.
If we don't ask just exactly what is meant by the 'pejorative' labels, we will continue to pay the consequences of being an uninformed electorate - a disaster in a nation where citizens have the vote.
September 2, 2008 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have seen people who wrap themselves in the flag and suddenly the idea of torturing people represents all that is good about America. Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Someone needs to really put a fork in the corrosive notion of 'American Exceptionalism' once and for all. Manifest Destiny was all it took to justify a genocide against the North American aborigines. But we have all the beloved films of how the rugged, all-American 19th century cowboys defeated the murdering indian savages and made America safe for the civilized European newcomers. And the truth about what happened in the South, up until as late as 1940, is largely unknown and is considered by many, at least many who still live in that region, to be un-American. The only way it was ended was by the US government's involvement in Civil Rights in the wake of the Brown ruling.
But bottom line you can go through the history of the US and find examples like this...
-Dred Scott ruling
-Native American Genocide
-The Mexican-American War
-Mistreatment of Asians and African-Americans, which was effectively 'forced labor', during the building of the Transcontinental railroad
-The Southern Gulags
-The internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII
-Our war of aggression in Iraq
-The use of torture and renditions as tactics in our GWOT
And I am sure I am missing some examples...these were off the top of my head.
None of this seems to be talked about with a critical voice. And people who are critical are branded as 'America haters' or 'Communists' by people who are convinced, through blind patriotism, that everything that America has done is 'morally defensible'.
September 1, 2008 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Correction...I meant to say;
And the truth about what happened in the South, up until as late as 1940, is largely unknown and is considered by many, at least many who still live in that region, to be un-American to discuss it critically.
September 1, 2008 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
While I agree with offensivetoyou's point that a culture (AmerIndian) whose technological sophistication is markedly beneath that of one adjacent to it (Western European) cannot expect to preserve its territorial integrity, it does seem to me that the point he's making is not germane in respect to Nathan's argument.
The issue is how realistically shall we historicize these events.
It seems to me that a romantic and unrealistic history of America's westward movement has come to be a significant apology for its imperialism as expressed in the Philippines War, the Vietnam War, and the Iraq War. And that a more hard nosed and accurate treatment of our history might go some way toward minimizing our foreign adventures which are too frequently justified based upon an overly sanguine view of our purposes, past and present.
September 1, 2008 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen said,
Does that include Mexico and the United States?
September 1, 2008 2:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
¡Pobre Mexico! Tan lejos de Dios; y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos.
September 1, 2008 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
God, I love it when she speaks French.
September 1, 2008 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I usually put quoted language in italics -- as I did, here. But I've just noticed that the italics could be thought to signify the use of foreign words, only. So ---
Honor where honor is due. The famous quote is attributed to Don Porfirio Díaz.
September 1, 2008 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ Ellen
I thought it was the work of Octavio Paz.
September 1, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
You must be thinking of this one. :-)
"Pobre México nuestro, tan cerca del fútbol y tan lejos de la ciencia."
September 1, 2008 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ Ellen
Porque no? Es lo mismo.
September 1, 2008 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
No es lo mismo. la primera dicha dice que estando cerca de los Estados Unidos es lo mismo que estar cerca del Diablo.
La segunda dicha dice que los Mexicanos son maleducados.
September 2, 2008 1:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
@ strat
Remember how the serpent temped Eve in the Garden of Eden?
September 2, 2008 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen,
Saepe creat molles aspera spina rosas.
September 1, 2008 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'll drink to that.
September 1, 2008 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'll drink to that too;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk-D5VtfzEA&feature=related
September 1, 2008 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ johnwjackass
Well then maybe we should all live in shit.
September 1, 2008 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen said;
Lets not omit our History regarding Iran.
September 1, 2008 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
And unfortunately for a gifted and unique people, Hawaii was the sunset of the first era of American imperialism. Cry for Queen Liliuokalani who abdicated to stop the execution of her aides. Curse sugar and the plantation companies and a US government that could create banana republics. Rejoice that Lilioukalani's music is still performed.
September 1, 2008 4:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
zeno,
thanks for the reminder.
September 1, 2008 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ Ellen
Of course it's a good idea to progress beyond the John Wayne version of history. But what Newman is doing is a version of that same history. He's just reversed the casting. That - in a nutshell - is the problem I have with the Left.
September 1, 2008 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV-R), the diagnostic classification system used in the United States, as "a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and a lack of empathy."
The narcissist is described as turning inward for gratification rather than depending on others and as being excessively preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power and prestige. Narcissistic personality disorder can be caused by receiving excessive praise and criticism in childhood, particularly from parental figures.
September 1, 2008 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ zeno2vonnegut
Marxism and psychobabble. The world of the useless idiot.
September 1, 2008 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I apologize if I have offended you, but you need professional help. While not so intelligent as you believe yourself to be or as the company you keep here, you are intelligent enough to participate and contribute if you can overcome your mental pathologies.
September 1, 2008 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seriously. Anyone who takes Vlad the Impaler as his (her?) avatar is deeply troubled.
September 1, 2008 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
What I find interesting about o2u is his compulsion to be disliked. You're spot on about his avatar and his alias is equally revealing. While a garden-variety narcissist craves adulation and o2u always notices if someone considers his ideas (even if they're declared to be "not germane" to the original post), o2u overwhelming craves rebuke, and redirects it to his self-image as a 115 IQ Mencken.
September 1, 2008 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ zeno
You haven't offended me. I think you're an idiot and I've said so quite clearly.
September 1, 2008 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ zeno
You want to do psychobabble? Think about this.
What kind of a schmuck attempts psychological analysis on a political site, without any access whatever to the real person? And does so with the intent of diminishing the person being analyzed? And attempts an air of lofty superiority?
Answer. A real schmuck. A pathetic little weenie suffering from a real serious sense of personal inferiority.
September 1, 2008 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
offensivetoyou,
you have a propensity, by your replies, to reinforce the negative opinion pointing to you.
Go to the dictionary and look up "irony."
September 1, 2008 8:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ johnwjackass
How do you think I feel about your replies and those of many others?
September 1, 2008 10:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sated.
September 1, 2008 10:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
offensivetoyou asks;
Stop initiating the unwarranted vicious insults and you stop feeling what you feel when people use your tactic against you.
September 2, 2008 9:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tsk. Tsk. Interesting work has been done on the use of profanity and what it reveals about the user. The dominating impulse seems to be projection.
September 1, 2008 9:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ zeno
Well, at least, you made me laugh.
September 1, 2008 9:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ zeno
I thought I'd let you know why you made me laugh.
I recently watched a movie which was not well received but which I thoroughly enjoyed "A good year", starring Russell Crowe and a terrific French actress. At one point she says to him
"...and you had your head stuck very far up your ass!"
No doubt your reponse would have been
"Gee, she's projecting"
September 1, 2008 10:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why do you say that?
September 1, 2008 10:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
without exception, every single time we see someone discuss the actual facts of U.S. treatment of its underclasses and the people who get in the way of progress, we hear exactly the same response:
lefty America haters
The use of the phrase "ethnic cleansing" is defined as the forced movement of original residential ethnic groups away from their homes without fair compensation.
The use of "mass murder" is precisely applicable to the destruction of settlements and villages when a few of the people being forced off their traditional lands get too uppity. It also applies nicely when the ethnic cleansing process moves groups from arable regions capable of supporting their populations properly to deserts that clearly cannot.
The books and articles referring to these various acts, be they screed or academic, were all but unmentionable in polite company and you are old enough to be aware of that fact. You are also old enough to be aware that what we were taught in school was significantly "cleaned up". As in "revised". That would be the root of the word "revisionist", and it applies to how our history was taught.
It wasn't until late in those hated hippy dippy days of the 60's that less unbalanced portrayals of U.S. history began to receive broad public attention. Often the response to those portrayals was itself to label them "imbalanced".
I still see bumper stickers and flags on vehicles in 2008 associated with the confederate flag: "Heritage not hatred". As reported in those screeds and academic articles, that heritage has a dark side. The people whose descendents are still experiencing the effects of such treatment should be granted a documented understanding of how our current "now" came to be.
Finally, we must understand our own history in order to define our current and future paths.
It is interesting, finally, to read of the "difficulty" of the leadership of the day, trying gallantly but unsuccessfully to prevent the simple ordinary (but monumental) theft of native resources by the land-hungry settlers.
So when it came right down to it, we just need to face the reality that when powerful people want to take whatever it is that weaker people wish to to preserve, the weak ones just have to bend over and take the loss. That has been and is the rule of the jungle.
American students were taught that this nation was formed in opposition to the rule of the jungle, or so I remember. The "lefty America haters" ask when will we begin to live up to that promise, and the more we discover about just how well hidden some of the nastier parts of our history has been, the more urgent that question becomes.
September 1, 2008 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
lenski,
excellent comment.
September 1, 2008 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ lenski
That's because you limit yourself to garbage published by idiots. Many people with an understanding of history much broader than yours and Newman's were and are fully able to place America in context of place and time, to see clearly our treatment of the natives and still see our moral worth. De Tocqueville for one. Marx and Engels, also.
September 1, 2008 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ lenski
What society isn't guilty of mass murder and ethnic cleansing as you define them? And what society hasn't "cleaned up" its history? Where exactly do you live? Not on this earth surely.
Kids are regularly fed pap but as an adult you should know better. The question is not "Is our society perfect" but "Is it better than others". I'll stick with Churchill's famous response. You can continue to guilt monger.
September 1, 2008 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
@OTY:
Double reply: You're stretching yet again.
Are we reading the same words? I don't see any comments about how America is wholly comparable to the many despotic regimes in human history (and unfortunately the present). I do see lots of comments about how we need to recognize our own history of misdeeds and do a better job living up to our promise.
But Nathan and others do argue, and I agree, that we hear too much about "American exceptionalism", and how it has inoculated us from many of the acts of other societies we like to dismiss as uncivil in our schools and political discourse. The facts are that American isn't as exceptional as some of the hyperpatriotic flag-wavers would have us believe.
So the argument is uncomplicated: Record, recognize and understand where our history also has its dark moments, become educated about how important it is to think these things through with respect to our current engagements.
Nathan's comment implies that a bit of introspection would go a long way in limiting some of the recent hubris in our actions abroad, and it's worth consideration. In service of the goal of greater wisdom, a bit of guilt is a perfectly appropriate encouragement to reflect on past behavior, and to improve in the future.
September 1, 2008 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ lenski
September 1, 2008 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Strawman. Nobody here is talking about how we are successful in spite of our national philosophy, including me. I've been too involved in too much technological activity for too long to believe otherwise. It's been an absolute treat to have been part of it. And "well hidden" is a matter of opinion: it's "well hidden" when hyperpatriots can make their flag-waving arguments, most of the society is unprepared to argue the historical facts, and too many citizens are incapable of making fully informed voting decisions.
I do believe that our freedom to build, and to derive benefit from that building (as in "capitalism") is central to this society's success. The thesis is, rather, that we should recognize that we aren't all that special, and that striving to reach that goal is a worthwhile endeavor.
Between 1992 and 1999, I was optimistic that corporate America had learned the lesson that freedom to build is a powerful generator of wealth, and that wealth could be shared by all who are willing to work for it. I felt that the rise of the Internet caught top-rank American management entirely by surprise, that the existing entrenched interests didn't have time to erect the walls, fences and toll booths that would have limited the growth. I thought that open standards, broad participation, free-for-all growth had been shown to be a no-brainer. Subsequently, the various attempts by the major providers to work their magic (limited competition, closed "standards", less predictable intellectual property regime, less service, more cost) leaves the U.S. in a much weakened position to participate fully in the increasingly competitive world market in information technologies. So yes, in a very important way, you may be correct.
September 1, 2008 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, in the past half-century, it's almost impossible to find a scholarly treatise or media account of America's slavery era or Westward expansion that doesn't portray Native Americans and African Americans as anything other than vitually sainted victims, and European Americans, uniformly, as greedy murderers. You're beating a very dead horse, and, if anything, it's time for a reappraisal of the disjointed history we're now presented. History is complicated; your's is cartoonishly simplistic and agenda-driven.
September 1, 2008 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, native Americans often are treated as "noble" and their defeat "tragic;" the romance of their defeats began almost immediately.
Question? How many U.S. textbooks say that the U.S. engaged in acts that, in modern language, would be considered war crimes and acts of genocide? The point is not that no history books discuss the abuse of native Americans. The point is that anyone who describes their treatment as calling into question the moral worth of U.S. policy and its existence in stolen lands would be treated as crazy and traitorous. Just look at how the student group, MEChA gets treated for raising the issue of stolen lands from Mexico and the mistreatment of latinos historically in the lands stolen from them.
September 1, 2008 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ Newman
You must be out of your mind to write a response like that.
If you're talking about high school textbooks, you're right. They don't adopt such adopt the terms "war crimes" and "genocide" when dealing with America's treatment of native Americans. But GOOD high schools - such as Beverly Hills high in L.A. - were telling the truth back in the '50s for God's sake.
And if you talk about college textbooks and professors since the '60s you're just flat out full of shit. I was at UCLA during during the early '60s and I know first hand. Many of them, just as now, did call into question the moral worth of the prevailing ideology.
The difference between good critics and America haters like you is a sense of context. What was going on in the rest of the world? What external pressures was America under? How did the Indians behave? Stuff like that. If you start with the earliest description north american Indians that I know of - John Smith of 1610 - you find people much like Europeans of the time; good and bad, tall and short, smart and dumb, handsome and ugly, and fighting among themselves continually with little mercy or consideration. With context you can properly judge. Without it your just a partisan fool.
As for MEChA, they are criticized for wanting to take back the Western U.S. and create a modern Aztlan...while forgetting to mention that both the Mexicans and the Aztecs were themselves cruel and terrible thieves.
September 1, 2008 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nonsense. Any high school history text is pretty blunt about the ill-treatment (and worse) of native Americans. Your complaint is weirdly anachronistic: the last textbooks that portrayed the settlement of the West as an unalloyed act of progress and civilizational advance (an the Natives as unimportant savages) were retired by the early 70s. The Massacre of Wounded Knee was highlighted in my seventh grade American history text-- and that was back in 1980. Why do you keep saying that neither slavery nor the Native American genocide are never mentioned in current texts (or fictional treatments) when in fact they are shouted from the rhetorical rooftops?
September 1, 2008 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nonsense. Any high school history text is pretty blunt about the ill-treatment (and worse) of native Americans. Your complaint is weirdly anachronistic: the last textbooks that portrayed the settlement of the West as an unalloyed act of progress and civilizational advance (an the Natives as unimportant savages) were retired by the early 70s. The Massacre of Wounded Knee was highlighted in my seventh grade American history text-- and that was back in 1980. Why do you keep saying that neither slavery nor the Native American genocide are never mentioned in current texts (or fictional treatments) when in fact they are shouted from the rhetorical rooftops?
September 1, 2008 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't know why previous comment was deleted, but I'll try again:
(1) the vast majority of the Left did not have civil rights for blacks on its agenda until the New Deal era. Unions was the cause de jour, and the unions were primarily racist.
(2) It sounds like the book exaggerates the extent to which blacks were caught up in this system. As many academic works have documented, there was a significant amount of labor mobility in the South between the Civil War and WWII. The truth, that tens of thousands WERE coerced, and more lived in fear of it, is bad enough.
September 1, 2008 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Disagree that unions were primarily racist. Racist, many of them were, but racism was not the prime reason for their existence. Rather, their racism was a blot on the ideals they professed, which is why, many, but not all of them were able to transcend their earlier racism and become more genuinely inclusive organizations. A union could be turned to such a purpose, a truly racist organization like the KKK, never.
September 1, 2008 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am page 108 and the 107 previous pages are full of strips of post-it notes because it is so overwhelming to read. Now I know why my American history book for a post-secondary American history class went gently over Reconstruction.
September 1, 2008 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
September 1, 2008 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bravo Nathan!
You are absolutely right about this patriotic denial business! I just bought a book this weekend that goes into great detail about lynching in America which fits nicely into this category. I am and was well acquainted with the fact that lynching took place frequently in America, but have been shocked to read and see the details about this hideously barbaric custom Americans used with frightening frequency.
Lynching was not exclusively used against black Americans, but the vast majority of lynchings were part and parcel of the system of legal terrorism and opporession that Blackmon describes in the system of slavery after the civil war. Included as "lynching" were the frequent burning of living humans that participants gleefully referred to as "barbecues". These crimes were often attended by thousands, were routinely reported in great detail and quite sympathetically by local newspapers and almost never did anyone deny participating in these gruesome murders. These crimes typically included long and public torture sessions including things that would make waterboarding seem humane like systematic cutting or chopping off of body parts, lighting portions of the body on fire, whippings, use of cork screws on the bodies of living human beings to extract flesh the way one might use a corkscrew on a watermellon, etc...
I have been utterly horrified as I have read the facts and seen the photographs (often made on the spot into postcards and sold to spectators!). People need to know about and really understand the role such practices have played in shaping our present society.
September 1, 2008 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ lenski
You're a smart guy.
Maybe the best way to respond is the simplest; there'll always be the uniformed, the ignorant, the stupid, the base, the greedy..and there'll always be those willing and able to take advantage.
That's the background against which we all struggle.
It's a good thing to be aware of the imperfections of our society. It's a bad thing to be overwhelmed by them. So I ask you what is the purpose of the book and of Nathan's post?
Probably not. But then how exceptional is it? And what will be the effect on our ability to wage war if we teach the negative aspects of our history while others don't do they same with theirs?
An absolutely impossible task, especially the latter part of it.
This is nothing but bullshit elitist propaganda of the worst kind. I know as much about our history as anyone posting, more I would say, and I completely disagree with most of them.
Go ahead and feel guilty. Nobody's stopping you. Suffer for me too if you like.
September 1, 2008 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, good point. We're all reasonbly healthy here. I suggest to everyone not to get depressed... :-)
Learning history, spreading knowledge, informing people who may not already know these facts. Temperance.
1) Not enough to follow flag-wavers into oblivion.
2) Irrelevant. We must do as we must, as informed by our best estimates of the value of the actions under consideration, and informed by our wisdom.
Wisdom can comes with practice and understanding, and hiding the facts of history prevent this important part of the learning process from occurring.
There you go again. Suffering is unmentioned and unnecessary. Being informed is necessary, and a bit of guilt is well known as a motivator for learning.
September 1, 2008 7:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ lenski
Disagree. Survival in the real world is more important to me than adherance to some nebulous ideal of truth.
Disagree. Never cast pearls before swine, meaning don't expect reason to rule among the unreasonable and irrational. There are damn good reasons for realpolitik, reasons gleaned from many centuries of experience.
September 1, 2008 9:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ lenski
Nobody ever mistook Machiavelli for a fool.
September 1, 2008 9:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Deb5: It sounds like the book exaggerates the extent to which blacks were caught up in this system. ... The truth, that tens of thousands WERE coerced, and more lived in fear of it, is bad enough.
Blackton does not exaggerate. His estimate is that at least a hundred thousand black men and women were directly re-enslaved in the convict labor system, and probably twice that. The system was widespread and pervasive in the deep south. So it is no exaggeration to say that millions more lived in fear of it, and accepted exploitation of various other kinds to avoid it.
September 1, 2008 10:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
September 2, 2008 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
seashell,
:-) :-)
September 2, 2008 9:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
:-) Backatcha, John. Here's to life, liberty and the pursuit of ..... property rights.
Unmangled format of original:
The British and United States governments at times took numerous actions to try to protect the Indians but were unwilling to go as far as shooting, or imprisoning in numbers, their own people who were desperately hungry for land. offensivetoyou
No need to justify the failure of Native American protection, offensive. Everyone knows that it was the Natives own silly fault for not erecting fences and creating 'enclosed spaces', adorned by Private Property warnings, that caused the whole tiff. If they had just done such a simple chore, rather than being lazy, uneducated and unChristian to boot, they would still hold those lands today.
September 2, 2008 11:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
@ seashell
You think the natives didn't have their own version of property rights? That they didn't seek to increase those rights at the expense of others?
September 2, 2008 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
offensive, it doesn't matter whether the natives had or had not their own version, as it is Locke's version of "inclosed land" that the US government apparently used as their source for 'legitimate' takings from the Native Americans.
yada, yada, yada
September 2, 2008 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
offensive, it doesn't matter whether the natives had or had not their own version, as it was the Lockean theory of "inclosed land" and "consent in the use of common money" ("the inhabitants thereof not having joined with the rest of mankind, in the consent ...") that the US government followed when legitimizing their takings.
September 2, 2008 9:18 PM | Reply | Permalink