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U.S. History Uncensored: What Your High School Textbook Didn't Tell You
By Carolyn Baker (about the author) Page 2 of 3 page(s)
in the current moment, constitutes the fundamental lynchpin of international relations.
To analyze these issues in depth, which most certainly results in learning that the history of the United States contains a very dark, as well as lighter past, is now considered disloyal, unpatriotic, and earns the analyst the label of "terrorist" or "enemy combatant." In response to these accusations, the dedicated historian must always ask: How did this happen? How did we arrive at such a state of affairs in our history? How is it that we are increasingly kept ignorant of the dark
side of American history and even discouraged from studying our history at all?
History Uncensored asks these questions and offers responses to them evoked by historical facts. Repeatedly, it presents historical events which are rarely discussed in traditional textbooks and asks the reader to think critically about them. I have taken great pains to document the information presented in it so that the reader may investigate the information in order to validate its historical accuracy and also research it further if inclined to do so.
Unquestionably, what is presented is unsettling, if not blatantly disturbing, and that is my direct intent. I have been and will continue to be accused of hating America and lacking gratitude for the benefits of being born in this nation. To this accusation I can only call on the wisdom of the great American writer Mark Twain who stated that "We should be loyal to our country at all times and to our government when it deserves it." As I adamantly declare to my students
of U.S. history, I love my country dearly, but I am now certain that my government has been and is in the process of destroying it. Americans who genuinely revere their national heritage do not blindly deify it, but rather, in the words of another great American, the former slave, Frederick Douglass, realize that "We should be lovers of our country who rebuke and do not excuse its sins.
Numerous former officials of the U.S. government have resoundingly criticized it within the past five years, not the least of whom was former Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor, who in March, 2006 stated that the United States is edging ever closer to becoming a dictatorship. She pointed to the incessant attacks on the U.S. judiciary by the right wing of the Republican Party which appointed her to the high court in the 1980s. "Statutes and constitutions do not protect judicial independence-people do," O'Connor emphasized in her scathing Georgetown University speech.1
Founding Father and second President of the United States, John Adams, wrote that "the historian must have no country". Adams meant that we must be so committed to discovering the truth that history reveals, painful as it may be, that we put aside nationalistic prejudice and apply the scalpel of historical research. By doing so, we help heal, not harm, the nation we revere. If we insist on "having a country" when studying history, such healing cannot occur.
Perhaps the most momentous historical event of the twenty-first century thus far was the fraudulent selection of George W. Bush, Jr. as President of the United States in 2000. This abstract addresses the event and offers overwhelming evidence of fraud and criminal behavior in the 2000 election. The reader may immediately wonder why I choose to label the 2000 election more momentous than the attacks of September 11, 2001. My answer is that I do not consider the two events to be unrelated. The connection is explained more fully near the end of the book, but the significance of both events is that, taken together, they launched a coup d'etat in the United States which dramatically accelerated America's trajectory toward empire, diverging with dizzying velocity away from its Founders' original intent, a democratic republic whose purpose was to provide for the general welfare of its citizens. What could be more despicable?
For the analytical historian, the only appropriate response is to diligently explore the process of the nation's demise from the signing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787 to the termination of that experiment in November, 2000. Beginning with the year 1865, that is precisely what History Uncensored intends to do.
I emphasize that the devolution from republic to empire has been a process and not an event. Throughout recent American history, particularly the history of the twentieth century, certain markers or "tipping points" have signaled the collapse of the Founding Fathers' experiment. One date in particular looms larger than life for the attentive student of history. That is 1947 when the National Security Act was signed into law creating the Central Intelligence Agency and
a black budget, which absolved the Agency from all accountability to Congress or the American people regarding its activities and expenditures. During the Reagan Administration of the 1980s, other government agencies were allowed to create black budgets which opened the door for unprecedented corruption in the federal government. Yet another marker-the assassinations of John F. and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. And then the consummation of empire: the 2000 elections and September 11, 2001.
I contend that if one does not understand that the United States of America in 2006 is an empire, one can understand neither its history nor its future. To meticulously analyze its history, which traditional textbooks do not do, is to witness that empire taking shape. In fact, like the correct placing of scattered fragments of a puzzle, History Uncensored endeavors to put the puzzle together and construct a "map" which not only connects past and present events, but causes them to make perfect sense.
One imperative I offer the reader before beginning the journey through the book is: Please remove rose-colored glasses. Be willing to entertain new definitions of loyalty, patriotism, and national pride. What you will learn there is not pleasant, nor is it unparalleled. My intention is not to portray the United States as uniquely evil. Nor do I wish to portray other modern regimes as exclusively honorable. Unquestionably, Stalin of the Soviet Union and Chairman Mao
of China behaved despicably and murdered millions of people in the name of the communist cause. Have other nations behaved as badly or worse than the United States? Absolutely. But I do not live in those nations; I live in the United States. My obligation, indeed my duty as an American citizen, according to the Constitution, is to dissent when I see its principles of liberty violated. For as Jefferson wrote, "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." More recently a similar maxim has become prominent among activists in American society: "Dissent protects democracy."
Perhaps what Americans most need to understand is that their nation is not "special." We have been taught to mouth platitudes such as "America is the greatest country in the world" or "people all over the world sacrifice everything they have, including their lives to come here." From the days of the Puritans who viewed the New World as "a city set on a hill" or "a new Jerusalem" or "a light unto the world," Americans have been enculturated to believe that other countries
have dictatorships, but we don't; that other countries are imperialistic, but we aren't; that other countries have corrupt elections, but we don't; that other countries torture and maim prisoners of war or their own citizens, but we don't; that other countries perform lethal scientific experiments on their own citizens, but we don't; that other countries would incite and conduct wars for natural resources or commercial markets abroad, but we don't.
In my own personal history, I have ancestors who fought in the American Revolution, some who were conductors for the Underground Railroad, and others who were members of the Ku Klux Klan. I wish that I could eliminate the reality of the latter, but I cannot. History, like the individuals who make it, is remarkably complicated. It contains the good, the bad, the ugly, the indifferent, and everything in between. I passionately contend that as Americans we must revere
that in our history which is extraordinary, honorable, praiseworthy, and yes, unique, yet at the same time, we must be willing to comprehend the long and tragic journey away from those incipient virtues to the depraved ground on which we now stand.
Some readers will undoubtedly label this work "conspiracy theory"-an accusation which I no longer take seriously given the fact that conspiracies do happen every day of our lives and that the "conspiracy theory" allegation is so unremittingly utilized as an attempt to marginalize arguments which question or confront "official history." As investigative journalist, Mike Ruppert is fond of saying, "I don't deal in conspiracy theory; I deal in conspiracy fact." A former Los Angeles Police Department Narcotics Investigator, Ruppert has become known to many as an "information cop", a term which refers to law enforcement investigative procedures, where pieces of evidence are gathered and configured, so that when the configuration is sufficiently indicative of who might have committed the crime, the evidence is presented to a district attorney or a grand jury. An information cop relates similarly to information. I encourage the reader of History Uncensored to become his/her own information cop and carefully examine the pieces of evidence there, configure them, or as we say, "connect the dots", and draw one's own conclusions.
Indeed, I have selectively included certain historical events and omitted others. I have done so because like any other historian, I have an opinion, and unlike some historians, I see history "going somewhere", and where it appears to be going is more than a little disturbing to me. Present, past, and future are inextricably connected and, in my world view, constantly influence each other. I firmly believe that we cannot understand current issues of global climate change, the
end of the age of hydrocarbon energy, the events of September 11, 2001, the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the globalist economy which is in the process of obliterating national economies, including our own, the draconian evisceration of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States, the proliferation of poverty, prisons, and people without health care, to mention only a few national and planetary perils, unless we incisively examine the history
of our nation, particular from the end of the Civil War to the present moment.
History Uncensored is meant to supplement, not replace, any textbooks or readings required by the institutions in which it is being utilized. The reader may be astonished at what is omitted in this work, but please bear in mind that my intention was not to write a history textbook covering every historical event from 1865 to the present, but to insert events that are typically excluded from traditional textbooks. For example, I have written little about the actual events of World War II, but I offer details regarding the Pearl Harbor attacks, the triggering event of America's involvement in the war, and the role of the United States in the world in the aftermath of the war and the war's effect on the U.S. domestically. For this reason, I have chosen to refer to the work as a curriculum abstract.
Whether one is a student in a formal class of U.S. history from 1865 to the present, whether one is a history teacher, a lover of history, or an activist, U.S. History Uncensored is a fascinating and provocative story of how America became the nation it is today, told from a perspective one is almost guaranteed not to find in traditional history textbooks. In other words, this is a history class the reader will not fall asleep in.
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
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