Revisionist Culture Poisons Young Minds
I am becoming increasingly alarmed attending theater and opera performances reflecting what could be called the “revisionist view of world history.” What frightens me is the effect the recent trend in “altering what really happened” will have on generations of theatergoers. Nothing, but nothing — well, maybe a radical imam — can affect the minds of the young as much as an attractive media formula, as Marshall McLuhan noted a generation ago.
My current case in point is Doctor Atomic, the agitprop opera about Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer by John Adams and Peter Sellars. It is the first Adams opera of recent years without a libretto by fellow American Alice Goodman. (Her libretto of The Death of Klinghoffer was regarded by an outraged world Jewry as pro-PLO and some feel this is why she is now a Christian chaplain at Cambridge University, having converted from Judaism.) Doctor Atomic asserts in a relentless, two-act cacophony the notion that the men who worked on the wartime atomic bomb in the Manhattan Project were filled with angst and guilt. It is notable that Edward Teller was one of the proponents of the “super-weapon,” the hydrogen bomb. In the opera, however, Teller is a doubter. When Oppenheimer’s loyalty was brought into question in the McCarthy-era communist witch-hunts, General Leslie Groves testified to the scientist’s loyalty and we know that Teller continued to promote the super-bomb.
The English National Opera’s home, the London Coliseum, was packed the night I attended Doctor Atomic; the appreciative crowd was buzzing during the interval. From snippets of conversation one could deduce this was a young, anti-war, and Guardian-reading audience. So I decided to engage with an elderly operagoer and he expressed his pessimism at the premise that Los Alamos was teeming with guilt-ridden scientists and anguished staff.
One of the mantras propagated every August is the “criminal behavior of the American government” at Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended the Pacific war but started the nuclear age. Pre-atomic, the carpet bombing of the Japanese mainland created a hellish firestorm. In The Fog of War, former American Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who was a young aide to General Curtis LeMay during this operation, observes that had the United States lost the war he and LeMay might have been had up for war crimes. These reflections are seized upon by contemporary revisionists to prove how truly evil the American military machine was, but it is accepted by most historians that had a ruthless campaign not been used against imperial Japan, a brutal land war would have been waged for decades with millions of fatalities on both sides.
At the end of the opera a deafening din is created to replicate the detonation of the first atomic bomb test in the New Mexico desert and we see words projected onto a thin screen expressing the anguish of a Japanese victim of Hiroshima. Having been the daughter of a World War II veteran who saw unspeakable things done to American and British prisoners of war, male and female (my mother visited the women in psychiatric hospitals, where they lived for the rest of their lives), this is classic revisionist culture. It is designed to make the world see America and its war allies as the true criminals. How glad I was that some people booed at the end of Doctor Atomic the night I went.
It’s pitiful, isn’t it? People *want* history to teach them something, so when it doesn’t, they rewrite it so that it says what it should. Then they tell everyone what happened, in their world, and soon it becomes reality, in some fashion. The sad thing is that alternative forms of history, like musicals and plays and so forth, while artistic, aren’t as scholarly as books on history, for instance. They’re also, because they’re art, less subject to things like peer review. This means that any predisposition of the “artist” can seep into their work, and there’s virtually no control over it anywhere, to prevent things from getting out of hand. And so it has gotten out of hand, hasn’t it?
The only condolence I have for you is that here in flyover country, hardly anyone has heard of those plays or operas.
I’m sure you would love to have history and culture white-washed for your consumption, with no critical perspective on any aspect of our nation. What you call “revisionist” culture is really just a diversity of views being represented. Picking on the perspectives you don’t like is fine, but calling them “revisionist” and “poison” is just hyperbole.
There is an equally troubling trend to pretend that America can do no wrong, and should not be subject to criticism. This is much more troubling to me than the idea of a play or movie that calls into question American actions.
As Socrates might say, the unexamined life is not worth living. Culture is a big part of how we examine the life of our nation. “Revisionist” or not, examining our history with a critical eye is an important part of helping America fulfill her promise.
Peace.
DS
Don’t worry, they are making a movie based on Atlas Shrugged and rumour is a remake of Red Dawn is in the works. That will wake the little brats up.
Really though, since when has absolute truth ever existed in film or stage?
David S. is a perfect example of the audience for this type of entertainment. They have been spoon fed from their liberal teachers and take every opportunity whether warranted or not to lash out at “the man”, the big bad US. Whatever. Yawn. Of course, it’s always comical to note that most of the “entertainment” mentioned in the article is based on misinformation but since it’s on stage, liberal empty heads automatically assume it’s the God’s honest truth! (For reference read David S. entire post dripping with vitriol for the US based on lame “entertainment” from a London stage.) By God a left-wing wrote it so it MUST BE TRUE!(As a side note David… You do know Monty Python stuff is not real right?) How dare anyone say it’s not. If it’s against the US it MUST BE TRUE! Heaven forbid David actually do ANY research whatsoever before basing his opinion on the group think of the closed minded left.
I do find it odd that the part David S. finds troubling is the “trend to pretend that America can do not wrong…” What? America has been drug through the mud worldwide thanks to the never ending criticism from ill-informed, closed minded juveniles such as yourself. It will take MUCH rebuilding to get back to a sense of dignity in the world which, after Obama finishes trashing Americans abroad and throwing the Constitution under the bus in favor of the adulation of the unthinking masses (hint: that’s where you come in minion David), will take YEARS to rebuild. Where do you stand on rebuilding that dignity David? Are you ready to stand up for ALL Americans or do you favor Obama’s approach of telling the world how awful we all are? I really don’t need an answer, I can guess yours already. Your parents must be ever so proud.
David S. America has made mistakes sure. But is also the hand that feeds the rest of the world. Can you see nothing that America has done right? Why do you live here?
Cure for revisionist history, start educating your kids from early on to the truth in history. Discuss what they learn in social studies and history and expand on it.
I’ve never heard of the plays cited here. Living in rural America one learns to draw upon more scholarly and historically accurate historical works. In the large cities of the country people swill at the trough of deconstruction, post-modernism, and revisionism. The large cities always draw the anti-Western, anti-American types. No surprise there.
These kinds of plays cropping up in the New York drama and arts scene do not surprise me. At the time of the American Revolution New York was the locus of the anti-revolutionary Loyalists. It was then the largest city in the colonies and it was the place most hostile towards The Cause. Nothing has changed. It continues to be the place where the new kinds of anti-Revolution coalesce into a Marxist miasma. They learned nothing from 9/11. Not one thing.
Fred,
I try my best to avoid looking down my nose on rural people, but since when has rural folks ever been the developers of revolutionary ideals? It may not bode well for you, but more revolutions start in cafes and not country stores. Sad, but true.
The Rural areas, and even most urban areas, always prefer the status quo. The nail that sticks out, gets hammered down.
TO: All
RE: It’s….
….TEA Time!
The acronym currently stands for Taxed Enough Already.
I propose another meaning….
The
Essential
American
Party.
Why? Because I’m becoming more and more dissatisfied with the weak, ineffectual Republican Party.
For the last four years, I’ve worked within it at the local level and watched how utterly ineffective it has been dealing with the challenge of rampant socialist agenda of our ‘friends’ on the other side of the aisle.
I’m giving them until 2010 to change their ways. However, so far, I’ve seen nothing that indicates they’ve done what is going to be effective.
Yesterday I attended two TEA Party events in two different cities. And I was impressed with what I witnessed. I was particularly impressed with (1) the number of people who’d never participated in a ‘protest’ and (2) the number of military veterans in attendance as PROUD participants.
There IS a revolution brewing here. And the so-called ‘progressives’ are (1) flumuxed and (2) scared.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. Taking pages from the so-called ‘progressive’ playbook and using their techniques against them is a VERY effective approach. We used them against one counter-demonstration clown. It worked VERY effectively. He almost got his sorry fourth-point-of-contact arrested….
He was being ‘mobbed’, i.e., counter-heckled out of the area.
His anger was such that he looked like he was about to ‘moon’ the counter-hecklers.
As he was ‘mobbed’ out of the immediate area, two city PD officers moved up behind him.
If he had mooned the counter-hecklers, he would have been mooning the PD officers……something to do with indecent exposure…..
@5. AThinkingPerson:
America has done wrong. There is nothing poisonous in admitting this and taking steps to repair our reputation. Denying our mistakes makes us liars as well as fools. A sense of dignity starts with honesty, on which can be built genuine self-respect. America has been drug through the mud worldwide, mostly because of our actions in the world – not because of anything said by bloggers in the USA. Trying to blame folks such as myself for the worldwide backlash against Bush is pure idiocy.
Obama has acknowledged our past failures, and this is the first important step in rebuilding our reputation. It signals a clean break from the past, and the opportunity to rebuild trust and restore the dignity of the USA. Moving forward without acknowledging the mistakes we have made would show the world we are not interested in anything but our own power and dominion. Being self-critical also provided cover for his criticism of Europe, which always seems to be ignored when this topic arises, despite the important connection.
Yes, it will take years to rebuild the dignity of our nation, and Obama is ready for this job. Obama knows that the world does not want us to tell them how great America is. We need to show them. I’m ready to stand up for all Americans when I say it is about time that our country show the world how great it is by addressing the problems we face at home and abroad with honesty, integrity and hope.
America is not perfect, but when we are at our best, we provide a truly inspiring example to the people of the world.
Peace.
DS
It is bad enough that the clerk in my local greengrocer berates me about the apartheid state of Israel>>>
============
Say What?
apartheid
Main Entry:
Pronunciation:
\ə-ˈpär-ˌtāt, -ˌtīt\
Function:noun
Etymology:
Afrikaans, from apart apart + -heid -hood
Date:
1: racial segregation
===========================
1. The Arabs and the Jews living in Israel are both of the same race; i.e. Semites
2. There is no segreation in Israel. Arabs citizens of Israel can live wherever they choose.
(I dare anyone to find a law in Israel that says othewise)
ARABS AND MUSLIMS IN ISRAEL
The freest Arabs, Christians, Jews and Muslims in Mideast are Israelis
Even after the “Palestine Liberation Organization” got authority over 95% of the Arab Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the more than one million Arab Palestinians in Israel chose to continue to live under Israeli sovereignty in the Jewish state of Israel rather than choosing to live under the all-too-unfortunate oppression which is the lot of their Arab and Muslim brothers throughout the Middle East. 77% of Israeli Arabs would even live nowhere else than in Israel. Moreover, millions of Arab Palestinian imagined “refugees” desire to “return” living in Israel.
Arabs in Israel have equal rights under the law
Arabs in Israel can vote for whoever they want
Arabs in Israel can worship freely
Arabs in Israel are entitled to the full same state education as all other Israelis
Arabs are members of the Israeli parliament and ministers in the government
Israeli society gives more opportunity to Arabs than do Arab states to their own citizens. Israeli Arabs and Muslims have the right to vote and to hold public office, like every other Israeli citizen. Nearly one-10th of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, is Arab; there is a mosque in the Knesset building for those who are Muslim. One of the justices of Israel’s Supreme Court is an Arab Muslim; so is a minister in the Israeli cabinet. Arabs are active in Israeli commerce, media, education, and law. For headstrong Arabs, bent on protest, Israel is in every respect a paradise compared with any other state in the Middle East.
http://www.middle-east-info.org/gateway/arabsinisrael/index.htm
If someone doesn’t believe this then they should go live in Isreal and find out by experience that it is the truth.
The claim that Israel is an Apartheid country is just a page out of “The Elders of Zion” and an example of freedomphilia
DS
Your white guilt is getting the better of you. Can you not see the good in America? Or the good it has done for the world? Why do you hate brown people so much thet they do not deserve your help at a chance at freedom and self determiniation? Are Iraqis and Afghanis not worthy of your help?
If there is a better country to be apart of then why are you not there? You may be ashamed of your country because you focus on the bad, i hope you dont have children or they will grow up thinking they only do bad things and never good.
“Left-wing artists and entertainers are rewriting the past to paint America and Israel in the worst possible light.”
They’ve been doing this, full force, since about five minutes after World War II ended. Leftism regards itself as a revolutionary, progressive force. But it’s a destructive poison. Unable to draw (and keep) any followers with its own virtues, it has to create ideological enemies via deception. It relies on the ignorance and irrationality of foolish people (such as the narcissistic airheads who populate the “entertainment industry”–the phrase “useful idiots” didn’t come from nowhere). From Mao’s Red Army to Baader-Meinhof to William Ayers, leftism is a destructive poison.
#11 — Trying to blame folks such as myself for the worldwide backlash against Bush is pure idiocy.
What worldwide backlash? The one where the Europeans are waking up and electing more right wing governments, and so on?
The entire damaged US reputation meme exists only in the minds of the “intellectual” left as their fondest wish. Mainstream europeans (e.g.) still like America and have done so. You would know this if you traveled overseas much. And worldwide? Been to Japan recently? South Asia? Heh.
My counter observation is that those who presume Bush damaged the US reputation are almost invariably weak minded faux intellectuals reading web based Guardian or Le Monde or Die Welt jabs and are unlikely to have a valid passport. Certainly they have little actual travel experience.
#5 — I do find it odd that the part David S. finds troubling is the “trend to pretend that America can do not wrong…”
In this aspect he’s correct. It’s what makes America great, the ability to take a hard and unflinching look at what we have done and wonder if we did the right thing. Theatre that presumes angst on the part of historical figures is not claiming that this is the unvarnished truth, but rather treating the subject sort of like a spreadsheet: What If [historical figure] didn’t believe in what s/he was involved with? A movie from a few years back looked at the same subject matter in much the same way and didn’t get the flames that are being delivered to the play mentioned herein.
Where I agree with David S is that cheerleading every possible political or military decision smacks of jingoism rather than deliberate and calm assessment. e.g. I think it’s clear now that the deliberate targeting of civilians by the 8th Air Force was morally questionable although at the time they hoped that this would cause the enemy to sue for peace. And yet, if I were there at that time making that decision, I’d probably make the same one for the same reason they did. There’s little that’s revisionist by definition about hindsight; it’s not revisionist to ask whether or not it could have been done differently.
It’s extremely hard to take this article seriously when most of the authors and commentors on this message board continue to promote gross historical fallacies such as:
- FDR was responsible for the Great Depression.
- Barney Frank is responsible for the current economic crisis.
- Hitler and the Nazi moevement were left wing.
- Saddam Hussein had WMDs.
The right wing is just as guilty of revisionist history and therefore has no credibility to lecture the left.
DS,
So many student loans, so few reasoning abilities. Have you already submitted your application to the President’s spiffy new blue-shirt compulsory volunteer civil service org, the Community Reconstruction Activism Platoons? It has a wonderful mnemonic anagram.
I don’t think David has white guilt, and I don’t see what is so wrong in his statements. One of America’s main strengths is our ability self-criticize and the ability to re-invent ourselves in changing times. The world whole holds up our dirty laundry as means to now look at theirs, yet we manage to reflect, change, and move forward. Every thing they think they have us on something, we turn it around and come back stronger. You can actually use Obama’s election as an example. Our strength is in our determination, resolve, and having the ability to admit when we’ve been wrong.
If you think looking at ones flaws and admitting them doesn’t help now and then, all you have to do is look at the Arab world and see where their hard-headed scapegoating has gotten them.
16. Pastor of Muppets:
- FDR was responsible for the Great Depression.
I think Hoover gets credit for that, but I think you’re referring to the debate on if FDR did the right things.
- Hitler and the Nazi moevement were left wing.
Depends upon what definitions of left and right wing you have. If Communism is left wing then so is Nazism.
- Saddam Hussein had WMDs.
At the very least he did have lots of yellowcake Uranium and old mustard gas artillery shells.
-The right wing is just as guilty of revisionist history…
That’s true, but since everybody screwed up does that mean nobody should try to make history accurate?
#16 — - Saddam Hussein had WMDs.
Not an example of revisionism except by YOU. Funny how that works. Until the US coalition went in and discovered otherwise, every intel service on the planet came to the same conclusion.
David S and others always seem to judge the US from a standard never applied to anyone else. People that rob and steal today in 2009 are excused with a variety of reasons: they’re poor, uneducated or have been oppressed. Their parents were mean, they didn’t have a sled, etc.
The USSR got the same excuses: it was poor when it started so it juts had to bump off those middle class farmers. Castro get a pass even today for his dictatorship, suppression of speech and closed trials.
The US gets no break for being a new country, at war or anything else.
Bombing Hiroshima was “inhumane?” To who and when? It may look that way now to people who weren’t slated to become body-bag fillers of an invasion of Japan or lose husbands, brothers and sons in the bloody end of a war we did not start. But they only judge the bombing by one group: the people in Hiroshima and by one time: now many comfortable decades later.. The US citizens who would have died by the thousands never count in this insistence that it was “inhumane.”
The 200 year old old compromise of valuing slaves at 3/4 of a person is claimed to be “proof” of racism of the founders–but the reason was to prevent the slave-South from dominating Congress with not to demean blacks.
A “study” pops out every so often insisting that the US “gives less” in foreign aid per capita than other countries. Its “proof” we’re stingy. The study ignores US private giving which towers over that of many countries and reflects what we are or are supposed to be–a private economy not one controlled by a government. The study conveniently ignores the immense benefit other countries get from the peace and quiet guaranteed by the US military at our cost, just as Britain did 100 years ago.
Its a wonder kids today can appreciate anything about their country’s past.
“There is an equally troubling trend to pretend that America can do no wrong, and should not be subject to criticism.”
You’ve got it backwards. There is a strong tendency in the media and the arts to vilify America and that it should always be subject to severe criticism.
@21. White Helmet:
We have to show that we can meet our own standards before we can expect the same of others.
I don’t think there is any question. Bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was inhumane, but the real question is whether the alternatives were any less humane. I think that is why most people now accept the bombings as a good decision, given the expected toll of conventional war. Any future nuclear weapon use would obviously call this logic into question. By inventing the atom bomb, humanity opened “pandora’s box” in a most terrifying way. The alternatives to dropping the bomb may have been worse, but that does not change the fact that a nuclear weapon is “inhumane” when detonated over a city. I’d call that an understatement.
If we had been the victim of a nuclear detonation, rather than the bomber, I think your idea of “inhumane” would probably be more informed.
Peace.
DS
Youth today are a bunch of eager little commies who have by and large fallen for the scam that ‘socialism works’, so why should we be surprised that they lap this shit up? The peckers already believe all this hogwash; these plays are just preaching to the choir to make a quick buck
And IF the Japanese hadn’t CHOSEN to attack the US, the Japanese wouldn’t have been the victims and we wouldn’t have been the bombers.
And IF the Europeans had embraced “pre-emptive war” where Hitler is concerned, the Japanese wouldn’t have been the victims and we wouldn’t have been the bombers.
See how that works?
Actually, just the other day I started writing an Opera about the current “currents” in World Affairs. Having never written an opera before, I thought I should start with lite-opera (with a heavy dose of Oprah). I figure I’ll just rip off a lot of Gilbert and Sullivan. I’d apologize to them, but they are just a couple of dead white guys. The working title is Prodigals of Penance. I steal “liberally” from The Pirates of Penzance. Here’s a sample:
With Diplomatic Creep
We stride History’s Stage.
Our movements shy and meek
The world spins amazed.
Praise we spread in full
Without a boastful word.
Give credit to The Bull,
And the entire herd!
Well, it’s my first Opera.
David S….revisionist is simply what it is, revisionist. I have examined my childrens’ textbooks for years only to see REAL American history placed further on the backburner for the sake of political correctness or “DIVERSITY” (that’s right, Crispus Attucks won the revolutionary war single-handedly and the Tuskeegee airman beat Hitler on their own).
Let us define DIVERSITY oriented education: a feeble, leftist attempt to place inferior cultures at a level with western Euro-American development, while discrediting America. It may make some people “feel good” but is ignores the truth that the vast majority of scientific, technological, medical, literary, engineering, aerospace,etc. advances have come from the Western influence on the world. Sorry, if some cultures continue to raise cattle and place bones in their noses…they will still never measure up. Einstein, Bell, Jefferson, Shakespeare, Darwin, Locke, Vivaldi, Cezanne….sorry, it a western European THANG, so don’t ask!
David S: “We have to show that we can meet our own standards before we can expect the same of others.”
Let me make sure I understand: people fail occassionally, so no system is perfect in application. But some are better than others because they are geared toward fairness. I know I’d rather be tried here than in Russia, Cuba or in whatever short-lived fascist country is around now. Wouldn’t you? But if we can’t judge till we are perfect, the US cannot judge the Nazi judicial system (or Castro’s)? Isn’t that like saying that a man that cheated once on his wife is no better than a serial philanderer? Is that really a fair way to assess things?
People can always point to one of more problems in the US: crooked cops, lazy judges, people that cann’t afford the best lawyers….so the US system will never be perfect. There will always be some voter fraud and crooked preceint captains.
But surely (no I’m not calling you shirley), that’s beside the point. When Mother Teresa, an otherwise nice person bumps someone in the street, we don’t say she is the “same” as someone that mugs people for sport.
Surely it matters not that you push a woman, but that you push her out of the way of a bus, or in front of a bus.
Hiroshima: if its inhumane to detonate a bomb over a city even if its the best way to end a war, then there is no “humane” way to fight a war. The bomb user is always “inhumane” for defending itself.
That’s insisting that to be “good,” one has to use a caliper on its every action and if we fail to be perfect, we are unable to judge those who neevr try at all. Ever.
I have a tough time with that: don’t you?
“We have to show that we can meet our own standards before we can expect the same of others.”
This is right out of Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals.” This is the thinking of the philosophical idealist (which I am not). I follow the tradition of Aristotle and Aquinas, not Plato.
Idealists are not overly concerned about the relative merits of anything. They are absolutists across every category of reasoning. So, because the United States is not the perfect nation, it isn’t worth defending and is only worth criticizing. Idealists/absolutists are obsessed with perfection; and thus will always be disappointed by reality. Their only allegiance is to a vision, a model, not to a specific people and history.
Alinsky and Gramsci believed that one of the ways to destroy Western Christian Civilization is to use our own aspirations and values against us. Destroy the credibility of our institutions by pointing out where we fall short or break our own rules. Use that to discredit them, and thereby advance the revolutionary agenda. An army of disillusioned, young, useful-idiots will go a long way in collapsing our Republic and the capitalist system. This is essential Gramscian Marxism. Destroy the fabric of society by convincing everyone that it’s all a sham and not worth defending. Then, insert into the elevated position the purity of the socialist model. And there you have it. The kids then flock to your banner and reject traditional values.
I forgot to add: idealists do not believe in the tradition of natural law and natural rights, which our system and our Constitution are based upon.
David S… There’s one glaring problem with all of your arguments above, OBAMA is THE PROBLEM. His oppressive tax scheme, TARP I, II (to infinity and beyond), the bailouts and his anti-American stance in the world theater are troubling to put it mildly. He isn’t implementing change for the better I’m afraid. You’ve elected someone that’s for change alright, but changing America and all that Americans have fought and died for for what? To give up our sovereignty to the UN? Pathetic. You can argue your liberal self til you’re blue in the face but to someone like myself that occupies the real world and is raising a family and saving for retirement… HE’S AN UNMITIGATED DISASTER.
So instead of highlighting all that Obama is still promising to change, why not look instead at
…what he’s ruined already?
What’s important to remember here is that the “updated” historical films & theatrical productions don’t need to be accurate. They don’t even need to based inreality.
What’s important is that they can continue to make sure that America is an evil empire, despite almost all evidence to the contrary.
Gee, it must be nice to be a progressive…if you don’t like the ending to a historical event, you can just make stuff up!
FWIW:
Even after the 2nd bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, dissenting Japanese officers tried to prevent Hirohito from issuing his surrender radio address. That’s how fanatical the miltarist rulers of Japan were. Had we used no bomb, a lot more Japanese civilians would have died — in many instances by mass suicide. Also, in order to conduct an invasion of Japan, we would have had to enlist the aid of the Soviets. The end result would have been several million more dead all told in a war that would have lasted at least through 1946, and possibly longer. Also, Northern Japan would have been in Communist hands like N. Korea and East Germany. ALL of Korea would likely have been Communist.
#34: You are quite right, and I don’t think there is any doubt about that. But it annoys me to no end to have some people (not you) insist that if it hadn’t been such a “win-win,” it would have been “unfair” or “ujust” of us to use it anyway, to lessen our own casulties.
The idea seems to be that hundreds of thousands of US soldiers, 17, 18 and 19 year olds, should have been sacrificed to avoid offending the delicate sensibilities of people who –not at risk and fully protected by their age, non combatant status– would have objected to “inhumane” methods.
#34 Roderick Reilly,
That’s the thing about the kind of people who really get into the revisionism that makes us look like the bad guys and the enemy is oh so misunderstood. In actual fact, these people are not able to get into the mind of the enemy, because they short-circuit the process of gathering the facts. Facts don’t matter to Leftists, if those facts don’t fit the approved template.
Just like the latest feeding fest over the “torture” issue. Those animals we nabbed had intel that saved lives, and I for one am glad we waterboarded them. It saved lives; it got information that enabled us to roll up important parts of their networks.
War is a dirty business and if you are not prepared to sometimes match your enemy’s ruthlessness then you don’t deserve to survive and win.
fred: you have David S.’s number. What an unwitting tool he is – maybe one day, he’ll wake up and realize he’s been conned by his professors.
The thing that astounds me about anti-American artists, writers and actors is that they do not seem to have the slightest awareness of what happens to artists, writers and actors in Marxist regimes. Maybe they should have a little talk with Vaclav Havel. He knows there are far worse things in this world than American values and capitalism.
The author of this article would do well to take off her rose colored glasses and move beyond the simplistic, romanticized stories that her parents told her. Just look at Oppenheimer’s mental breakdown! There is no disputing that he WAS filled with remorse after Hiroshima. You guys can believe whatever fairy tales you want, but here in the real world, history is not a simple as A B C.
Of course, I realize that everyone here is going to claim that I couldn’t possibly know anything since I’m younger than 40. Isn’t it a rather convenient argument that only old people know what “actually” happened? What a great way to negate any new ideas!
As usual Carol Gould goes out of her way to see anti-American/anti-Israel plays or plays that in her febrile imagination can be so twisted (e.g. A Matter of Life and Death, which was a glorious musical, celebrating life). She then extrapolates and distorts, as if this represents the whole of the UK theatre scene, ignoring, in London alone, many, many plays portraying the opposite point of view (Seven Other Children, England People Very Nice to name but two).
She throws in a random and probably fabricated anecdote about her greengrocer (last time it was a taxi driver) portraying herself as a victim of imagined anti-Semitism. And throughout it all, doesn’t explain why she is still here, living in this God-forsaken country.
Same old same old. Utter twaddle.
@28. White Helmet:
David S: “We have to show that we can meet our own standards before we can expect the same of others.”
I never said the system had to be perfect – that is your strawman. Our standards don’t demand perfection – as you note, they demand fairness. I would not like to be “detained” in any country where I could be denied fundamental human rights, including the USA. Nevertheless, your standard of perfection is not a fair way to interpret my statement. Our standards are mostly about process – we have set aside established process, and this is a big part of the current problem.
There may be a “humane” way to fight a war – but detonating a nuclear weapon over a city certainly is not part of it. Nobody is demanding that war be humane. Suggesting that it would be wise to learn why leaders elected to bomb two Japanese cities with nuclear weapons is not revisionism. One does not have to be “humane” to be “good”. You’ve heard of the lesser of two evils, right? That’s probably the best thing one can say about the decision to drop a nuclear bomb on Japan.
Peace.
DS
David S.
Sadly, you, and those who think like you, like to pretend that America can do absolutely nothing right.
You also like to pretend that other nations have never done anything wrong, but are simply pawns in the hands of Facist Amerikkka.
And, under Obama, they now respect us so much jihadi pirates are attacking our ships, and Iran, and Korea, are going full-speed ahead on their nuclear programs.
Peace, Luv, bubble-gum and plush smurf dollies!
David,
The Genie is out of the bottle. Deterrence is an inescapable reality now, and if we were to unilaterally disarm or foreswear the use of nuclear weapons we would be well on the way to being subjugated by those powers which have no problem with nuclear blackmail.
It is an indisputable fact that using the atomic bomb saved millions of Japanese lives – maybe saving their country from extinction. It saved hundreds of thousands of American lives.
I looked at the naval quarantine issue and we just would not have been able to afford to maintain it indefinitely until the bushido code and culture was destroyed, and its threat to Greater Asia ended.
And the Soviets got the nuclear technology from spies working in the Manhattan project. One of the scientists named Fuchs made sure Stalin got the good stuff from us. The Rosenbergs were the conduits. Some think that Oppenheimer knew what was going on, and just looked the other way because he also was a man of the Left.
It is doubtful that the Soviet Union would have been as aggressive as it was without the nuclear weapons technology.
I might have some small amount of respect for the pacifists if they broke away entirely from their socialist allies. But they don’t, because, in the end, they find that they they have more in common with the Marxists than they do with America.
Oftentimes Russia is described as the country with unpredictable past – the deconstructionism, cultural relativism and the “multi-faceted” history which now haunt America, put us in league with Russia, no doubt about that.
David S 40:
OK. Perfection is not the standard–we don’t have to “meet” our own standards before criticizing. After all, “meeting” our own standards is not verifiable. We will always fall short of perfection. And evolving standards in the US as a progressing country not a regressing one, will assure that new and higher standards are set. So I appreciate your agreement that perfection is not the test.
So: we have to look, do we not, at who really tries to ensure freedom of the press and where it is in fact most free: who really tries to ensure fair trials and where one would want to be tried. We ignore the shortcomings of this pretty good system and say to others “why don’t you have freedom of the press?” We don’t say, “Oh my gosh, the press here sometimes ignores poor people, so it is not perfect.”
We don’t say “Oh how terrible! The US once had slavery: it’s stained and not perfect!” We say: “Damn! They had a bloody and expensive war to end it, then spent 100 years eradicating it from the US south and passed burdensome laws to accelerate the process.”
And as to war we say: “It does not grab land and it treats its defeated enemies well.”
=the United States is the most free, most fair place to live in the world that is simultaneously capable of sustaining itself against external threats. Other countries ought to emulate it. Its citizens are not only right to criticize other countries, but wonder why they stubbornly prefer failed dogmas of past ages. We don’t need to be perfect or even come close.
So we are 100% agreed now, yes?
David S. doesn’t have a clue as to what he is talking about. (And I only made it to his post before posting this, so if anyone else said what I’ve said, good for them!)
If we hadn’t dropped the atomic bombs, we would have suffered an estimated minimum of 500,000 casualties (KIAs? I need to look this part back up again as it isn’t fresh in my mind right now) in invading Japan. And the Japanese would have suffered an estimated 10,000,000 to 60,000,000 or even higher. That was the mindset that the Japanese were in at that time.
But, these people never really did matter to the folks on the left who try to lecture the rest of us on what should have been done here from a moral point-of-view. It’s a good thing Truman had no patience for these idiots.
Hell, even after we dropped the atomic bombs, the Japanese Army’s officer corps had a revolt against the Emperor and tried to assassinate him for pushing surrender.
The kind of willful ignorance that the left has for history is embarrassing, as well as dangerous. And as for their moralizing? Pffftttt!!!
“I try my best to avoid looking down my nose on rural people,”
Heh. That’s what people ALWAYS say about us just before they look down their nose on us.
“but since when has rural folks ever been the developers of revolutionary ideals? It may not bode well for you, but more revolutions start in cafes and not country stores. Sad, but true.”
That’s because we’re too busy working our butts off while people sitting in cafes are busy dreaming up ways to spend the money we’re trying to make.
See? Two can play at this game. It’s fun.
I’ve been mad about this for a LOOOOONNNG time. I woke up when Disney turned the tragic story of Pocahontas into a paean for environmentalism, buying into the “crying Indian” myth started in the 70s. The modern trend this way began, I think, with The Crucible, which warped the Salem Witch Trials out of recognition, and it has only accelerated since. Treasure those few historical fiction works that hold close to original sources; their writers are heroes.
“Obama has acknowledged our past failures, and this is the first important step in rebuilding our reputation. It signals a clean break from the past,”
Um, no.
Obama has groveled and abased himself and, by extension, our nation, while praising and gladhanding and kowtowing to the world’s hyenas, the scum rulers of truly inferior, criminal states. Just today Thugo Chavez became one of his new BFF’s.
“Rebuilding our reputation?” Among whom? Blood-crazed kaffir-hating jihadi psychos? The bloodsoaked kleptocrats of Africa? Good luck with that. Or perhaps you’re only concerned with the opinion of the intelligentsia of decadent, dying Europe- which is committing cultural suicide through the same sort of self-loathing seppuku.
Western Civilization is the greatest on Earth not because we have never engaged in oppression or slavery or conquest or all the rest- OF COURSE not – but because we, uniquely in all the world, gradually arrived at the conclusion that these things were wrong. But on this basis you claim that we need to “repair our reputation” with the savages and barbarians who believe no such thing?
David S said “As Socrates might say, the unexamined life is not worth living. Culture is a big part of how we examine the life of our nation. “Revisionist” or not, examining our history with a critical eye is an important part of helping America fulfill her promise.”
Well said. However, don’t you see that it is ‘hyperbole’ to suggest, based on that argument, that we ought to embrace all examples of criticism (such as those mentioned by Carol Gould) regardless of content, fairness or tactics of deception? According to you these historical depictions are not ‘revisionist’, but you’ve made no argument regarding their content at all. I think it is clear that you are the one who requires a lesson in critical thinking.
White Helmet @ 28: Yes, and ultimately David’s “We have to show that we can meet our own standards before we can expect the same of others.” is just an excuse to avoid having a fair perspective of world issues and history. It’s his excuse for hyper-criticism of American foreign policy and ignorance of its necessity.
When you accept that we actually live in a world that is influenced by more than just American foreign policy and where the actions (or inaction) of other nations also deserve a ‘critical-eye’, you can no longer escape our RESPONSIBILITY as free people and nations to actually show good judgment. To insist that when we criticize the injustice caused by our actions that we do not inadvertently strengthen the more significant injustice caused by America’s enemies. That we consider not only the hypothetical tyranny from a strong US military, but also the hypothetical consequence of its absence.
When you do not use tricks to avoid good judgment I think it is clear that America is a light in the world and is worth defending for what it is, not only for its potential to be better.
Someone75 @ 38: “Of course, I realize that everyone here is going to claim that I couldn’t possibly know anything since I’m younger than 40. Isn’t it a rather convenient argument that only old people know what “actually” happened? What a great way to negate any new ideas!”
It is perhaps inconvenient that attempts to revise history get contradicted by people old enough to know what actually happened. However, don’t be fooled into thinking that the answers to all of these questions are completely ambiguous for younger people who are curious about history. I am probably younger than you are (based on your cutoff age of 40) but do not need to rely on my elders to form my own opinions (though I admit that I am certainly influenced by what I consider to be strong arguments). I suggest reading work from that time period. Certainly consider Churchill’s accounts of the 1st and 2nd world wars. If you are really keen then check out what aspects of these works were disputed (but be careful to consider the timeliness of such disputes or you may be subjecting yourself to further revisionism).
In others words isn’t it more relevant to wonder: is it not convenient for revisionists to speak to an audience who are too young to know they are being taught lies?
Someone75 @ 38: “Of course, I realize that everyone here is going to claim that I couldn’t possibly know anything since I’m younger than 40. Isn’t it a rather convenient argument that only old people know what “actually” happened? What a great way to negate any new ideas!”
History is history. What actually happened and was witnessed and lived by our elders cannot be changed by “New Ideas” because ideas are not facts and events. New ideas in the context of history is pure unadulterated revision and to me is either the result of academic laziness or, and this is what I personally believe, a conscious effort to destroy our culture and civilization and equate us with the tyrannical and murderous Fascist and Communist dictatorships they so admire.
to #3 DavidS: Is there no history that is fact. The fact that Hitler & facism was evil & Japan did horrible things to China & Korea is a fact. It is diffcult for citizens to accept those fact about their country. But as much as I love America I have to accept the fact that we had slaves & Jim Crows laws & Catholic hate & started Eugenics (read Buck vs Bell opinon written by Oliver Wendal Holmes) but because Japan, Germany & the US has evolved past that history does not mean we are still evil.
One other thing The parents or grandparents need to read & understand history to counter the school influence on kids. When ever my daughter came home form school with a revintionist history I will explained what were the facts not the change. It did help. But I do have one consulation the 60s counterculture was aganist the trandional parents. I just hope we will have another counterculter in a few years against the boomers parenting skills by a new boomer gerneration
“In others words isn’t it more relevant to wonder: is it not convenient for revisionists to speak to an audience who are too young to know they are being taught lies?”
This is the problem.
David Goin:
I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you that the people writing the history may have told it from their perspective. We can know Lincoln was born on a certain date. We can read his words from a famous speech. We cannot know what he was thinking. That is merely speculation. Much of what you consider historical fact is no more than the perspective of the person writing it.
Do you actually believe everything you read in memoirs and autobiographies? No! They are the work of people writing their lives, not as they “actually” happened, but as they *want to be remembered*.
I can listen to my grandparents tell stories about events from the twentieth century, but their views are necessarily subjective. They can’t tell me what it was like for anyone but themselves. This seems so obvious to me. I think our difference of opinion is based on old people who still believe anything written in a book is fact – or that anything they were taught and have always believed is fact.
Things change. Facts are not set in stone.
Years ago I read a book THUNDER OUT OF CHINA it was a history of WWII in China. China lost over 25,000,000 people for sure. Estimates are her losses were around 50,000,000 people. The Japanese openly made war on the civilian population of China. I remember reading about the plagues that killed much of the population. Later I learned that the Japanese used germ warfare on the Chinese.
General Lemay probably didn’t even know about the huge atrocities carried out by the Japanese. History, if studied, shows that he was 100% right in how he approached the war with Japan.
“Things change. Facts are not set in stone.
#56. Someone75:”
Do you believe this is relatively true, or absolutely true?
Perhaps it is because liberals in gerenal have little honesty and no sense of honor or pride in their heritage and the enormously great things our culture has brought us that you people automatically project lying and deceit on everyone.
I would and do trust the people of that era far more than the lying, backbiting,sleazy graduates of today’s education establishment. You liberals always think that if it was a good thing for our western civilization and our culture and well-being that it must be lies, all lies.
Only acolytes of Comrade Marx,Stalin and that murdering scum Mao can be trusted to write history.
I’ll go out on limb here and say it. I believe we had the best culture and system of government before FDR and the rest of the socialist fellow travellers hijacked our government and most alarmingly our schools. So now we have two generations of well indoctrinated, morally bankrupt and academically retarded citizens who follow every fad they are told to by their all knowing leaders. Ask the people of Cambodia about the wonderfull world of socialism.
Actually, the thing about facts is that they ARE “set in stone.” That’s why we call them “facts”, and not “opinons”, “beliefs”, “ideologies” or anything else that suggests something vague, fluid and impermanent.
Facts are solid. They aren’t fluid, and they’re pretty permanent. People can be mistaken about what’s true, and what isn’t, but once the truth is discovered, it’s immutable.
And, David S., I think if you’d been a Chinese, or Filipino, subjected to Japanese torture and rule, you’d probably have an entirely different take on the atom bomb!
This is just anecdotal, but I’ve heard that a many Orientals, who suffered under Japan in WWII, when asked about the bomb, say things like, “Why did you just bomb those (*(*(*&&^%%*! Japs just ONCE? And the Japanese still aren’t real well liked by countries like Korea. I know you’re going to find this real hard to admit, but other countries have done, and do, evil things too; check out North Korea, or Cuba. And they don’t even try living up to any sort of standards before criticizing other nations—or the standards they do want to live up to: spreading Islam, Marxism, the glorious East Asia co-prosperity sphere, whatever—arent’ really good one.
Sad, but that’s human nature.
Peace, luv, ring-pops and plastic bottles you can blow bubbles with, using those little hoop thingies.
“There may be a “humane” way to fight a war – but detonating a nuclear weapon over a city certainly is not part of it.”
So, take it up with the liberal Democrats. They’re the ones who did it.
Republicans waterboard terrorists. Liberal Democrats, OTOH, intentionally burn hundreds of thousands civilians alive.
If you find atrocities unacceptable and you STILL vote for liberals…then you’re basically an idiot.
Carol Gould is absolutely right!
A special committee of the great and the good (especially Jewish American former 1970s television producers) should be formed in Great Britain, and this committee should examine all plays and musicals before they are performed.
British people cannot be trusted to make their own minds up about what plays and musicals they wish to see. The special committee will make up their minds for them.
There remains only one question; what to name this special committee?
I suggest “The Freedom Committee” as only such a committee can guarantee that works critical of the United States and Israel are never performed in Great Britain.