When many people think of history I imagine they believe it is mostly about dead people whose stories have little to no relevance to our “modern” lives. Just look at the History Channel which seems to show more sensationalist prophecy or doomsday programs than good ‘ol fashion history. I guess in some sense I as well may have been guilty of not fully respecting history. For a long time now, I have really enjoyed history and the more I learn the more I love it. Once you think you have a general understanding of history you realize that is all it is, a general understanding, that is barely scratching the surface.
It may take a lifetime to learn history, yet if history is truly studied it doesn’t take long to realize why it is so important. History tells us where we have been and what we are capable of, whether good or bad. It is not only a tool to help analyzing the possible consequences to different choices, but it can also help explain why we are where we are today. So history is completely relevant to our “modern” lives.
For example, when the Bush administration was spreading their WMD propaganda a considerable many more may have been skeptical if they would have known the history of U.S. wars.
In 1846, Polk delivered a speech to congress, which included the famous statement arguing why we needed to go to war with Mexico, because they had, “invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil.” Those words turned out to be that war’s version of Bush’s infamous sixteen words that scared us into going to war with Iraq.
In the Spanish-American War, newspapers quickly jumped to the conclusion that the Spanish blew up the U.S.S. Maine, even though an investigation conducted at the time could find no one to blame. Nevertheless, the country was soon at war with Spain. A later investigation found that the Maine likely blew up from an internal fire. We still don’t know and will probably never know for sure.
There is also the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which was used to escalate the aggression in Vietnam. In the documentary Fog of War, McNamara himself now admits that it did not happen.
These incidents are among only the major wars. Let us not forget all the other so called “interventions” in other places around the world; 13 forays in Nicaragua alone!
After learning about this in history one may come to understand that the U.S. government is not flawless and when it comes to war innocent people have suffered for those mistakes, lies or whatever you want to call them. If we are supposed to be a democracy and those are the ideals we want to spread, before beating the drums of war should we not first make sure we have exhausted every other conceivable means to solve our conflicts?
As for the current war, I am sad that the even the Democratic presidential candidates seem to be hesitant to end it. And I thought that’s why they were elected. Once again history can explain that just because candidates say something it doesn’t mean they will follow through.
History is very important. U.S. history should be important to all of us who say we are patriotic. We should study it and know our flaws and short comings as well as we know and celebrate our great accomplishments. This will allow for that fake guilt that leads to political correctness and the “it was a long time ago, get over it” attitudes to begin to disappear. The replacing attitudes will be true compassion and real understanding. At least that is what I have learned from studying history.
Links:
Wiki: Election Promises
History is a Weapon
A People’s History of the United States - Free Online Version
Another book to read is James W. Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me. I havn’t found this one free to read online, but you can find a hard copy on Amazon for fairly cheap. It’s a shorter book, but packed with information.