Revisionist history

Revisionist history

@Duck and Decanter in Phoenix, AZ

 

I saw a bumper sticker (actually I think it was just above the bumper) on a large expensive (Navigator or Escalade) SUV. It read: The founding fathers were right wing extremists. Oh, really! Here I thought that:

1.       Conservatives (right wingers) wanted the status quo.

2.       The founding fathers were revolutionaries.

 

I checked the dictionary just to make sure that I knew the definitions. Both the author of the bumper sticker and the misguided person that believes it should do the same.

 

It kind of reminds me of the Tea Party mentality. The original tea party (December 16^th 1773) was a political ACTION in response to two issues. The first was the financial problems of big business (The British East India Company) that instigated placing a tax on tea imported to the colonies (where the founding fathers lived) and the revolutionary idea that parliament did not have the right to tax the colonies because the colonies were not represented in parliament. You see my problem with the tea party mentality?

 

Let me explain. I have only seen a lot of talk and precious little action. The second is that I am willing to bet that every citizen (felons excepted) that attends a ‘tea party’ has two senators and a congressman as his elected representatives. Please note that I am not objecting to either their right to assemble or in the issues they find important to talk about. I do however object to the co-opting an iconic symbol of the American Revolution for uses that are far removed from the historical truth. Just as I object to the bumper sticker that distorts history.

 

Recently I read about a bust of Josef Stalin that is stirring up controversy. The bust is at a memorial to WWII veterans. The objections come from those that say Josef Stalin was as bad as Hitler. Yes, he was. But he was also the leader of an allied country during the war. A country that lost many more people to the war than the U.S. did. I think we need to remember both that he was a bad guy and that he affected decisions that changed WWII.

 

The church (by the Church I mean all Christians) seems to be especially adept at forgetting and revising history. The first crusade in 1096 is remembered as a good thing. (As a crusade in general is.) We forget about Christians Burning Jews at the stake. Some of us also forget that the New Testament was written in the first couple of centuries after Jesus lived when mores, knowledge and books (especially history books) were quite different. I have heard the New Testament quoted on how women ought to be (especially in Timothy and Titus) but never that slaves should be sent back to their masters as in Philemon. Those that quote about how women should behave would probably also claim that the pastoral letters (Timothy I, II and Titus) were written by the same author as Philemon. Most biblical scholars have their doubts about Paul being the author of the pastoral letters. That of course brings up a different aspect of revisionist history since the pastoral letters claim to be written by Paul.

 

I can imagine the writer of the pastoral letters being a fan of Paul and saying something like “I like what Paul had to say and I am sure that he would have had this to say about some problems we have at the present time. Something like a political conservative saying I am a right winger and I admire the founding fathers so they must have been what I am.

 

During WWII General Dwight D. Eisenhower (my favorite president as well as general) visited Ohrdruf concentration camp and said:

 

 “The things I saw beggar description...The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were...overpowering...I made the visit deliberately in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to 'propaganda.'”

Eisenhower quote outside US Holocaust Museum

 

These days there are people that say the holocaust never happened. Some would say that only a Muslim would claim something like that. Unfortunately that would be a revision of history. Christians have also made that claim.

 

I note that there weren’t any claims about the holocaust being faked during Eisenhower’s lifetime. I wonder if the development of Photoshop has had any connection with the increase in revised history.