Is History Becoming History? ( #BOTB Results )

Who should decide when what or who has become irrelevant?   Do you trust others to make that decision for you?  And who are those "others"?   

Is History Becoming History?

        Looking back to my years of pre-college education, it seems strange that I often considered history to be one of my least favorite courses.  It's strange--maybe even contradictory--since I've always loved movies, books, and stories about historic events.  I still prefer non-fiction accounts of people and times in the past.  In actuality history was/is one of my favorite subjects.

          It would be unfair to some of the wonderful teachers I had in younger days to say that they taught the subject of history poorly.  Primarily it was a matter of my perception--a perception that changed radically after I began taking history classes at the University of Tennessee and began pursuing the topic on my own.  History became interesting to me as well as relevant to my understanding of the people and events that shaped history to the present day.

          Those who we see currently rejecting the achievements of those who brought us to where we are now--those who want to tear down monuments and erase names from history books--they are essentially ignorant from all indications I receive from them.  Or they are radical insurgents who are deliberately trying to destroy the history, culture, and legacy of the United States of America and for that alone they should be condemned and rejected.

        To me there is no logical argument to tearing down or even removal of statues and monuments that currently exist unless they pose some kind of threat to their surroundings or there is a sound purpose in doing so.  Just because they might "make people feel badly" is not a reasonable argument.  Those monuments are inanimate without any motivation in and of themselves and therefore cannot "make" anybody feel anything--people chose to feel an emotion, control it, and take action to deal with why they feel that way.  The monuments are objects of learning, reflection, understanding, and discussion.  They should be cherished as part of our heritage--or at the very least respected as property that others might appreciate.

        And all of this does not even address the memorials as art.  They are indeed art since they were creations of human minds and handiwork.  Some, such as those on Monument Avenue in Richmond VA, are (or were) quite impressive to behold.  When I lived in Richmond my route to work took me past those statues and I always enjoyed seeing them.

         Now, the statue of Stonewall Jackson (whom I still proudly claim in my family's ancestry) is gone.  I guess the others have been removed as well.  I know that the statue of Matthew Maury was removed after Stonewall, something I lamented since I had only recently learned about Maury's great contributions to science and navigation.  Why oh why?  Why is there so much ignorance?  Why is the will of a handful of un-American Americans catered to while the rest of us are not even given an opportunity for input?   The incompetent mayor of Richmond, Levar Stoney, is a pitiful joke as far as I am concerned.

           But that's where we've come to in this country.  Loud mobs of ignorant child-adults seem to be kowtowing local and state leaders into submitting to the will of folks who care nothing for America.  None of the government leaders or mob participants will ever attain the great achievements of Christoper Columbus, Thomas Jefferson, or Andrew Jackson.  I can say that with relative confidence and I'll retract my words if I ever see it happen.

          We live in sorry days, but I'm hoping better things will be coming.  I don't expect that to happen so I won't lay any money on that bet.  As much as possible we need to reject the mob influence or the influence of insidious radical groups like Black Lives Matter.  If you're offended by that then do your research--BLM is an evil organization.  Many people can't seem to distinguish between the sentiment of black or any lives mattering and a leftist organization that has absconded a slogan as their name.

            In true Orwellian fashion the radical left wants to rewrite our great history to reflect their ideology.  The pressure to shame us about our history is leading to musical groups changing their names, movies and books under consideration to be banned or given limited access, or erasing any vestiges of our history in our surroundings.  If you really want to tear down statues then build your own damn statue on your own land with your own money and rip the sucker down.  Otherwise leave your filthy mitts off of what others have created and funded. 

           I for one love the United States of America despite its flaws and foibles.  History should be a learning experience.  Unfortunately the spoiled brat radicals haven't learned much from our history, but they are gladly taking cues from the evil governments of the past that did the same kind of eradication of the past.

             To get angry or upset about history and what people of the past did is utterly foolish and stupid.  Really?  Getting emotional about things that already happened and can't be undone other than in some childish imaginary way?   Let's pretend things didn't happen? 

               I glad I'm more intelligent than that.   But that's me.  And I think it's a lot of other people as well.   Anyone who supports the "peaceful" protesting of graffiti, looting, violence, destruction, and chaos in general is an idiot--a dangerous idiot.  Maybe you have a different point of view about this-- and then maybe you're an idiot.



Battle of the Bands Results 

         This most recent Battle featured the Dave Loggins hit "Please Come to Boston" as performed by Confederate Railroad and Reba McIntire.  The Railroad chugged out of the station with a nice lead, but it wasn't long before spunky Reba overtook the train to take the lead all the way until the end of the match.

          I liked both versions quite well, but the male voices of Confederate Railroad were more preferred to me than Reba's country twang.  But, alas, my vote for the Confederate guys wasn't enough to beat Reba.  And I gotta admit that her version is pretty good.


Final Vote Tally

Confederate Railroad         10

Reba McIntire                    13




Next Battle on July 15th?  Maybe? Probably

           If I show up for a mid month Battle I hope you'll join me in a week.  I still feel like I need the break, but on the other hand I have so many Battles waiting in the wings that by doing two a month I might wrap them up in a couple years if I'm still blogging that long.  Then, of course, there is that fact that I keep thinking up new Battles to add.  But for me it's all less of a conundrum than it is a matter of whim.  Either way, I intend to be back at some point so please don't forget me.  Forgetting seems to be the mode of the day and I don't relish being the next victim of being forgotten.  Not in my lifetime at least.


        Can you think of a logical reason to tear down monuments to the past (especially if they have been standing for many decades)?    Do you think students today are being properly educated about history?   Are you interested in exploring the past?  

Time Travel, Revisionist History, and the Liberal Agenda

 "Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."    1984 by George Orwell

A mosaic stitched image of Stone Mountain, Georgia, United States. Taken with a Canon 5D and 70-200mm f/2.8L at 200mm. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

         When the CW television network debuted The Flash in 2014 I was enthusiastically on board from the first episode.  Since I had been a big fan of the first short-lived incarnation of The Flash in 1990 and sad to see its demise after only one season, I welcomed the reinvention of the superhuman speedster in a television era where special effects technology would be so much better.  The characters in the new show were well developed and fun and the story was not so far-fetched that I could reasonably buy into it.  But then, as will invariably happen with such genres, the writers of The Flash went into realms of the absurd that I could no longer accept.  I've stopped watching The Flash.

         Superhero stories like most science fiction and fantasy typically require healthy doses of willing suspension of disbelief and yet there can be limits to just about everything.  In The Flash I could accept the increasing array of super villains and even the alternate universe.  However for me the entire "flashpoint" concept--the changing of a timeline where the Flash entered a world where he had memories of another timeline that no one else knew with subsequent plots revolving around events connected with the new timeline with plot points interjected from the previous timeline--this concept annoyed me.   To me an ability for someone or some power to be able to change the past or create an alternate past has no logic and becomes downright silly.

        Oddly over the past few years we've seen a number of television shows and films with similar past-changing plot devices.  This past TV season alone I've gotten caught up in Frequency (derived from the 2000 film of the same name) and Timeless.  In both, the element of going back in time in order to change the timeline of history does bother me, but the stories have been so engaging and are so well written that I was able to forgive the illogical premise.   I also recall seeing other films and shows that used the device of changing time (Looper comes to mind) but I can't name any others at the moment, but I've been less forgiving of most of them.

        Time travel happens to be a favorite fictional genre of mine, but I have a hard time accepting the stories where someone goes back to change history.  To me that's like the story that has the "it was only a dream ending".  It's a gimmick that usually doesn't work well for me unless it's something on a less serious note such as the Back to the Future films.  If time gets changed to the point of a new outcome then was the outcome as remembered by the time traveler comparable to being only a dream?  And what does that traveler do with that memory and once returned to a future with a new outcome does that traveler have the memory of the new history line somehow implanted in their mind?

       For me there becomes an almost conspiratorial suspicion that this type of change plot line is a sort of liberal leftist agenda, whether it be purposeful or subconsciously devised, to become a part of the revisionist history movement that is becoming more popular in recent U.S. thinking in circles of academia and new progressive socialism.

        More often a tool of dictatorships and radical governmental change agents, the concept of historical revision is being seen in the movements to remove symbols such as statues of former heroes, primarily associated with the Confederacy, or the names of historical figures that offend certain people in new movements taken off of schools and other public buildings.  Many early explorers, founders, and shapers of the United States are now being looked upon with disfavor and gradually being eliminated from this nation's history or relegated to roles where they are deemed essentially unsavory.

       The agents of social change and certain academicians unable to physically go back in time in order to exert change seem to want to instead rewrite history books and change the landscape to no longer reflect an existence of anyone who engaged in anything that is now looked upon with an unfavorable eye.  The revolutionaries of the New Order of Thought would prefer future generations to understand a new and different history that is more reflective of the demographics of our time.

          Revising history is in the hands of educational institutions, politicians who exert the most power, social groups with the loudest voices, or whoever else becomes the victor in future struggles for dissemination of knowledge and lore.  The entertainment industry has been doing this for years as seen by theatrically released biopics and historical epics.

         More than once have I been disappointed after watching an interesting film and then, after being driven by curiosity to investigate further about the topic, to find that what I had seen was mostly a reinvention of actual history.  If in the future our textbooks and other references are changed to reflect the new history then who will know what the truth is.  Already we see a mythology of history appearing on the internet to the extent that we cannot always trust what we read.  This of course has always been the case to some extent in published materials, but with the internet it seems that revisionism could be getting worse.

         So George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were really jerks and not worth having a school named after them?   Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were part of an evil cause and should have their monuments removed from public view?   The United States legacy is really one of aggression and oppression?  Does the history of this country and the country as it now is deserve to be respected?  

         Oh, I'll still be watching the time travel shows and films.  I'll do my best to suspend disbelief as much as I can.   But nevertheless, this nagging fear will linger in my mind that maybe the trend to depict time travelers as being successful in changing history is really a nod of approval to the real history revisionists in our midst.  When society starts eradicating the truth, they might create an illusion that where we are now and where we are going in the future is wonderful, but they will also be building castles with foundations of sand.  

         What do you think of the revisionist history movements?    Do you like time travel stories in which history gets changed?   What is your favorite time travel television show or movie?  

          On Wednesday I'll be presenting a Battle of the Bands post which continues on the theme of today's post.  Two different songs from the seventies by two well known groups who went through numerous personnel changes over the years.  If you'd like to join the participants of Battle of the Bands to present your own musical battle then let me know so I can have your blog link added to the list.  It's great fun and we'd like to see some more musical tastes involved.   I'm sure you've got something you can add to the mix that will make things even more interesting that they are now.

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• '1984' is coming to Broadway to make you uncomfortable
• North Carolina school board rejects ban on Confederate flag
• Confederate statue to be removed from outside courthouse
• This fascinating map is the Ottoman Empire's take on the United States In 1803
• Independent bookstores are becoming centers of political resistance
• (Identity) Politics & Prose

Happy Columbus Day--Was He a Hero?

        Should we stop honoring Christopher Columbus?   That's what some people have said.  Certain groups have called for the day to be in the future called "Indigenous People's Day."   The argument points out all of the cruel treatment, enslavement, and death brought to the peoples who already inhabited the land that Columbus "discovered."   He was certainly responsible for many tragic outcomes for those that he called "Indians", believing that he had arrived in the East Indies.

US Postage stamps: Columbian issues of 1893,

         
          When I was a child we celebrated Christopher Columbus and his great adventure to the New World.  The story was sanitized for the consumption of school children and indeed much was probably known only to history scholars.   On the whole, Columbus was revered with poems, books, and artworks.  Now in recent decades Columbus has been portrayed as a villain, an opportunistic European who took advantage of his conquered lands.  

           The way I see it is that we are dealing with history--events that cannot be changed and therefore should be accepted for what they are.   We cannot fairly judge those in the past according to the standards of our time.  The voyages of Columbus were amazing and courageous.   Christopher Columbus set the groundwork for the settling and development of the United States of America.

           I think Christopher Columbus deserves every accolade that is handed his way.   Unfortunately a trend to revise history often seems to be the rule of our time.   Revisionist history is one of the most deceptive and misguided movements coming out of the realms of academia.   Tear down the old heroes and replace them with some ambiguous ideal standard of lifestyle that was eradicated by those evil explorers,colonizers, Founding Fathers, and many others who came before us.

           Changing the players, events, and mindsets in order to create a new narrative is what it comes down to.  Sounds kind of like what our media does on a regular basis.  "History is written by the victors," is the oft heard claim.  Perhaps now we can more appropriately say that the media are the historians of our time.   This strikes me as a somewhat disturbing thought considering the questionable honesty of most media sources.   Or should I say selective honesty?

             Do you think that Christopher Columbus deserves to be honored?    Is history being tampered with too much in order to present a more politically correct view of the past?   Do you believe that media is trustworthy or does it exhibit a bias that influences many people in making important decisions like who to vote for?  

Happy Columbus Day!