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Henry Ford is reputed to have opined that “history is bunk.” The adjectival words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs that attend any report of it, unquestionably can indeed turn it into that. The consequent predicate being “can.”
Regardless that a miller’s daughter might be viewed by some as actually spinning gold from straw, the bare-knuckle facts will always remain unchanged; it will be straw, and the only gold will be that which finds its way to the eyes of those who would twist it.
History is rather like that.
Of course, where is the harm, if some or many would twist bare-knuckle facts into fiction?
Perhaps “nowhere” is an answer, though I submit otherwise, though I submit the harm is extreme.
On the one hand, the unchallenged practice degrades history as an honorable study while it concomitantly insults the intelligence of those the spinners presume to be too ignorant to recognize both the insult and the misstatement of facts.
On another plane, it can be insidiously devastating on a population and a world caught up and subjected to what is after all a lie, or a series of lies. History is replete with a retelling of the deceptive efforts and their terrible products.
I would beg your indulgence to permit me to provide a few examples.
Fiction, yes. But the movie Atonement is a tale how a wholly innocent man’s life can be utterly destroyed by a vengeful young girl’s made up story of the man’s improper sexual advance upon her. However the movie is a fiction, it has happened.
In our own country, innocent men have been lynched on nothing more consequent than the idle imaginings of those bent on the evil.
But even more current, thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqis have perished, multiples of times more have been mutilated and forced from their homes, and 4,000 of our military have lost their lives as at least fifteen times that number have been disfigured physically and untold countless others have been emotionally and/or psychologically scarred. Our national security has been terribly weakened, as pan-global populations distrust us and loathe us. Our scarce treasure has been disemboweled at the very moment that the forces of global competition demand we upgrade every aspect of our infrastructure. And not the least at the end of a lengthy scroll of miscreant deeds, the contents of the most sacred document this country can cling to, our Constitution, has been treated like it was cheap toilet tissue. And all of it on spun straw.
Bare-knuckle facts matter. And they must always be seen to matter, most importantly to teachers, those all of us rely on to elevate our youth to their rightful place as informed citizens. But when the teacher is him- or herself uninformed, the students he or she is responsible for can never hope to be. And . . . for want of a nail . . . the nation was lost.
It is always a good thing, to welcome into our cause as many as we can; like a furniture retailer gathering inventory from the truck. Nonetheless, should we overlook the marred pieces, simply to build that inventory? Those pieces might be amenable to refinishing, but until the blemish is erased by whatever efforts might be necessary, it will remain and will diminish the overall value of the stock thereby.
The words from Ms. Craig’s offering that struck my heart savagely are these: “For the past eight years, I have been embarrassed by a president hoping [sic] his nightmarish tenure was just an aberration on the successful track record of the political party who [sic] proudly boasts Ronald Reagan as its most beloved member.”
The GOP’s extended effort has proven itself to be a successful application of the “Big Lie.”
If Ms. Craig had identified herself as anything other than a teacher, I might have felt less aggrieved. But, for starters, the GOP is the party of Lincoln. Would Ms. Craig, in her educator role, contend to her charges that somehow President Reagan was, or even ought to be, held in higher esteem than our 16th president?
Sadly, tragically, few Americans today have the first whiff of a guess concerning the malevolencies that attended the Eisenhower administration — the global conspiracies of Allen, and his older brother, John Foster Dulles to support the most brutal of dictatorships [CIA support of Fulgencio Batista led inexorably to Fidel Castro; the 1953 CIA removal of popularly elected Mohammed Mossadeq and replacement by Shah Reza Pahlevi led directly to the Iran hostage crisis; CIA support of Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay bred fed hostilities through the continent; the CIA-organized coup d’état overthrow of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo provided a clear path for Soviet expansion in the sub-Saharan region], and the docile acceptance by our 34th president of Senator Joseph “I have a List” McCarthy’s pogroms was a most egregious calumny that has been surpassed only by similar efforts by George W.
Putting lipstick on a hog (Ronald Reagan’s tenure [see my brief catalog — on this site — of the history]) has been extraordinarily effective. Much of America has bought whole hog the ruse, and it has led directly to the mass of sufferings that today’s, and tomorrow’s, populations have been and will be forced to endure.
Should I have dissembled, been disingenuous by just letting it — the maintenance of the RR beatification — go? I have tried hard to fill in a few gaps here on Op-Ed News, when I found them. I’ve tried hard to elevate the discourse with thoughtful offerings that might serve to counter the excreta so prevalent on the smoke-screen Right.
Why not let your readers decide: do I stay, or go?
Thanks for permitting me my defense.
— Ed Tubbs
