tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post2051233198378861052..comments2024-03-08T14:23:31.503-05:00Comments on A Puff of Absurdity: Timothy Snyder on the War on HistoryMarie Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13872774009526266579noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post-41039367135010334982021-07-08T10:43:30.681-04:002021-07-08T10:43:30.681-04:00Fascinating bit of history!Fascinating bit of history!Marie Snyderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13872774009526266579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post-88135998102516923862021-07-06T18:54:28.180-04:002021-07-06T18:54:28.180-04:00In Texas, state Republicans managed to derail a pr...In Texas, state Republicans managed to derail a presentation at a state history museum in Austin that would have explored the real cause of the rebellion that led to the Alamo battle.<br /><br />The event was to discuss how it was Mexico's decision to abolish slavery that got white Texans to secede. No one was going to take away their slaves. Sort of like Texans and their AR-15s today. The governor, lieutenant-governor and House speaker forced the museum to cancel the event.<br /><br />https://www.salon.com/2021/07/06/remember-the-alamo-actually-texas-republicans-would-rather-you-didnt/?fbclid=IwAR0J5FH48Z_IWdawzpFcuvD_hwkvRTkXsp_8c8zHIuq1F0MUIAElR47tpokThe Disaffected Libhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13135599782685108764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post-86912038101437414592021-07-06T15:43:33.598-04:002021-07-06T15:43:33.598-04:00Hi Bill - Yes, I think it might stick this time!! ...Hi Bill - Yes, I think it might stick this time!! It's curious the number of times issues are raised and then fall to the gutters, huge numbers of MMIWG2S and even with the Truth and Reconciliation years! Tiny bodies in mass graves appears to be the kick in the gut necessary to activate people into understanding the atrocities that were committed and start to notice how they continue. It makes me a little hopeful that Canada can come to terms with it - maybe even stop running pipelines through unceded territory and provide access to clean water. But I don't know how the Israeli powers that be manage to continue maintaining such levels of rationalization and self-deception, or what it will take to get everyone to be shocked into the realization of what's going on enough to protest Canada's continued support. Marie Snyderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13872774009526266579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post-12091087665785055832021-07-06T15:37:09.861-04:002021-07-06T15:37:09.861-04:00Andy - I completely agree with facing our past hea...Andy - I completely agree with facing our past head on. Without an authentic and complete knowledge of our past brought out into the open, any apology is inadequate and the past will keep calling out for redress. Marie Snyderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13872774009526266579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post-43040166150206278262021-07-06T15:04:22.905-04:002021-07-06T15:04:22.905-04:00Interesting.
Memory law must be the new right win...Interesting.<br /><br />Memory law must be the new right wing Repug words, or those of its critics, for state-sponsored historical revisionism. The NYT, which grandly bills itself as the newspaper of record, has been practising revisionism for ever and a day, but on Democrat Party and US federal bureaucracy foreign policy terms in particular. It doesn't take much digging to get to other alternative news sites around the world that question the US narrative in deep and annotated terms. The US Right, lacking any imagination whatsoever except how to make money and put down all serfs but especially racialist minorities, merely prefer to embed utter nonsense by statute, so that their biases are there for all others to ponder. For now. Idaho. Hmm. Visted there once a quarter century ago, and the people seemed all right. Obviously potatoes have since fried their tiny minds. Texas and Florida, well hey, what can one expect? As an agnostic, anything to do with bible studies being treated as fact horrifies me. Might as well believe in magic. Organized religion with hierarchical structure and a textbook of fables I have zero time for, personally.<br /><br />The one thing we have experienced in Canada in the past month is that we have not buried the effects of residential schools in official revisionism, but have exposed the truth to the general citizenry. About ten times over before now, but this time it may stick. Of course, I note that both Cons and some Libs have come to the table decrying the defacing of statues to past "very important people" who turn out to have been complete racists and poodles of the extremely wealthy. You wonder how newspaper op-eds of 100 to 140 years ago actually treated the PMs we had in their day-to-day performance as "leaders". Was anyone at all semi-awake? Or was it all colonialism for the win? So long as the Brits let us do it independently, of course. And that didn't happen till the Statute of Westminster in 1931.<br /><br />Of course, when one thinks of whole country sponsored revisionism and memory law, and succeeding in even having lines in US employment contracts, Israel has managed to officially award itself the privilege of being uncriticizable there, or you lose your job. The illogic of anti-Israel-the-state criticism being officially interpreted as being anti-semite is the major revisionist coup of recent times. I can criticize our governments till the cows come home and get away with it, but decry Israeli action against its Arab citizens or show interest in the Palestinians, and I'm for the high jump. No wonder Atwin left the farce that is now the floundering Green Party or what's left of it.Bill Malcolmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15815258799473130453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post-7155860125066387382021-07-06T14:59:10.869-04:002021-07-06T14:59:10.869-04:00I think, ironically, that the US and Canada may be...I think, ironically, that the US and Canada may be able to learn from Germany there. The country faced its pas head on, and worked hard to teach it accurately and begin a future in another direction. <br /><br />It made for uncomfortable history lessons but it means people understand what happened and why our current electoral system exists.<br /><br />I also noticed a change in Germany, a watershed happened in 2004, when the world cup came. Before then German flags were incredibly unpopular, and it was seen as almost bad taste to have one, a sign that you were an extreme right nationalist, but that year it all changed and being German seemed to become more acceptable.<br /><br />Now anyone of my generation or below is certainly aware of the dangers of national socialism and to make sure we keep our society free, but also very happy to be a modern German, confident in their identity and also in their identity as Europeans, which is an important factor. <br /><br />They see the NS period as something that happened in the past, so they can't take responsibility for it, nor do they feel any collective guilt for it, but they can take responsibility for making sure it doesn't happen again.Andy in Germanyhttp://www.workbike.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com