Wednesday, September 20, 2017

The Painful Reminder of History


The Painful Reminder of History

 

By de Andréa

Opinion Editorialist for
‘THE BOTTOM LINE’

Posted September 20, 2017   


When I was in High School I discovered after getting into trouble and sent to the principal’s office,  that I embarrassed my history teacher by interrupting his lecture and asking him, “Why did this happen.” He didn’t know the answer.  Somehow even then I thought, - ‘why’ something happened in history was somehow very important even more than –who- when – what or where which was crammed down our throats. The truth of that experience is that I’ didn’t learn from that particular part of recent history, because I did it again, and was again sent to the principal’s office.  But if one examines that example one will discover that I got into trouble again, because I didn’t know ‘why’ it happened in the first place, why I was sent to the principal’s office… proving my point. 


Today, angry people are violently and ignorantly tearing down historical monuments and statues because they say “they are painful reminders of the past.”  I can only say that they are as ignorant as my teacher was about the purpose of history.

How long will it be before the America haters will remove the Monument at right of Americas
Forefathers at Plymouth Mass.

Statues and memorials are supposed to remind us of history. And all the more, if they are painful.  The Vietnam memorial painfully reminds us of history, with the names of all the veterans that died, a grim reminder of a useless war. Arlington Cemetery painfully reminds us of the history of all wars.  Painful accounts of history in our history books are there to remind us that if that part of history did not bring about a positive result, then maybe we should learn from it and not repeat it.  

Erasing history doesn’t make the problem go away, only the reminder of it.  Which is not only counterproductive, but I can guarantee that we will do it again.   Sir Winston Churchill once said that:  “The further back one looks, the further forward one can see.” And Edmund Burke said:  “Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.”

But what if we tear down all the reminders and burn or rewrite all the history books.  What problem will that solve? None! It will only recreate the problem farther on down the road.

But that isn’t even the worst of it. Once the eraser is being used to get rid of painful history, it also erases the constructive parts of history such as self-government, freedom, rights, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  We have already lost most of our Constitutional rights because of ignorance. Your grand kids will know nothing at all about what America was and was meant to be.  Because history will be gone or rewritten.

And therein lies the reason my friend, the ‘why’ of history is being systematically destroyed.  The answer that I was after already when I was in High School. Why is this happening?

It took me the best part of my life to discover the answer.  And the answer, wouldn’t you know, lies in history itself.

Historical negationism or denialism is an illegitimate distortion of the historical record.

“Those who control the present can rewrite the past.” ― Anne Fortier
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” ― George Orwell

If you read a history book written in the United States from the early 1950s, on the origins of the Cold War, you’d get a definitive answer on which country was to blame, backed up with extensive evidence to justify its points. The book would say it was the fault of Soviet Russia, under the leadership of Stalin, and it would refer to Stalin’s takeover of eastern Europe, his refusal to grant its governments the democracy he had promised them, and his desire to spread communism to all corners of the globe. His belligerence at the 1945 Potsdam Conference, his execution of anyone who stood in his way, and his deceit over Berlin would all be stated effusively. Historians who viewed the Cold War in this way have become known as ‘literal thinkers’.
But if you picked up a US history book from the late 1960s early 70s, the chances are, you’d get a very different view. You’d read of America’s desire to take over economic control of Europe and tie the countries there to the dollar. You’d read about Truman’s aggressiveness at the Potsdam Conference, his use of the atomic bomb (was the second one actually necessary, or was it just a warning to the Soviets?), the setting up of NATO; in short, you’d be told that responsibility for the Cold War was Washington’s, and that Stalin merely acted defensively, after having lost around 25 million people as a result of the Second World War. This way of approaching the Cold War was termed as ‘Revisionist’ defended as the other point of view, which of course is a politically correct word for Negationist.
In the former USSR, censorship, rewriting of history and eliminating undesirable people became part of Soviets' effort to ensure that the correct ideological and political spin was put on their history. Deviation from official propaganda was punished by confinement in labor camps and execution.
Today the efforts to rewrite history continue in the U.S., albeit the punishment is not as draconian as that in the Soviet Union, not yet anyway. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu had a Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee monument removed. Former Memphis Mayor A C Wharton wanted the statue of Confederate Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, as well as the graves of Forrest and his wife, removed from the city park. In Richmond, Virginia, there have been calls for the removal of the Monument Avenue statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gens. Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart. It's not only Confederate statues that have come under attack. The destruction of Mt. Rushmore, and the Jefferson memorial and the Washington monument. These history rewriters have enjoyed total success in getting the Confederate flag removed from state capitol grounds and other public places.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The Constitution is an historical document of law which is meant to govern the laws in our country.  Without even physically rewriting it the courts have managed to negate it and the incremental mutation of the Constitution has already rendered it all but useless.
As soon as one alters history, or erases it completely, every bit of knowledge that came before that time is gone.  This is not progress my friend this is regression and is a part of future oppression. 
And now to answer the question as to ‘why’ this process is being orchestrated and by whom. As I said, one only need to look at history itself, and the best example is still the USSR, in order to change the country from a semi-capitalist state to a purely socialist state the next generation must not have any knowledge of the past, as if life begins ‘here’.

If you happened to have been a high level Soviet official several lifetimes ago, you may or may not still be in their history books. It was common practice to erase people who had fallen out of favor with the Politburo. In addition to being taken out and publicly shot, the censors would erase your image and edit your name out of text. Peaking during the Stalin era, untold thousands of people disappeared from history in his purges. Out of millions killed by his regime, only a few thousand made it into their history books to later be erased. This would have been the fate of Steve Bannon and Gen. Flynn had they been Soviet citizens.

History, painful or not, must remain as a reminder of where we came from so we can either build on the noble and virtuous aspects of our past or avoid the negative characteristics of the road from our history to the present.

Is the reason why this rewriting of history has been, and is so prevalent in the U.S. today because ‘we the people’ are falling into the same ignorant trap as the Soviets?

If this is allowed to continue for any reason we will not only lose our history but we will lose our self-government, freedom, rights, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So when we tear down the statues of history painful or not. We are also tearing down the future for our children.  

Ignorantly touted as removing painful reminders, the destruction of history is actually the corrupt Federal Shadow government Deep States attempt at the destruction of the origins of the Representative Constitutional Republic of the United States of America.

Thanks for listening my friend. Now go do the right thing, pray and fight for truth and freedom. 
- de Andréa
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