World War II and Historical Myopia

Commenting on the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II, Lexington Green at Chicago Boyz complains about the prevalence of historical distortion and revision:

American children whom I talk to are apparently taught two things and two things only about our participation in World War II: (1) The Japanese Americans were imprisoned, and that was racist and wrong, and (2) we dropped atomic bombs on Japan, and that was racist and wrong. Some know about the Holocaust. College age youth are taught that the war was an exercise in American imperialism, meant to spread expoitative capitalism across the world, and that it is a myth that the GIs went to Europe to liberate the conquered countries or to bring democracy and freedom. Even depictions that are not entirely negative, such as Saving Private Ryan, depict the war solely as a personal tragedy and pointless death and destruction, and not about anything, and certainly not about anything good or admirable. Fed exclusively on this diet for over a generation, we now have a population that sees the war in this way.

That pretty much agrees with my observations. Historical awareness, to the extent that it exists at all, is at the level of a superficial morality play. It brings to mind a comment John Stuart Mill made in his essay “On Liberty,” regarding what has now become the ruling paradigm in education:

That the whole or any large part of the education of the people should be in State hands, I go as far as any one in deprecating. All that has been said of the importance of individuality of character, and diversity in opinions and modes of conduct, involves, as of the same unspeakable importance, diversity of education. A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body. An education established and controlled by the State should only exist, if it exist at all, as one among many competing experiments, carried on for the purpose of example and stimulus, to keep the others up to a certain standard of excellence.

Well, we did not take Mill’s advice, and now we have in practice what he inveighed against in theory. Green gives us his take on the result:

Reagan was right. I have gone beyond being distressed about all this to being fatalistically resigned. With historical memory either non-existent or actively corrupted, those of us who care about these things will have to preserve the record as best we can.

I concur. The best advice I can think of for anyone who really wants to approach historical truth is, go back to the source material.

The AP and Van Jones: Stuck on Stupid

The Associate Press informs us that, “Obama advisor Van Jones resigns amid controversy.” According to their article,

Van Jones, an administration official specializing in environmentally friendly “green jobs” with the White House Council on Environmental Quality was linked to efforts suggesting a government role in the 2001 terror attacks and to derogatory comments about Republicans.

and,

The matter surfaced after news reports of a derogatory comment Jones made in the past about Republicans, and separately, of Jones’ name appearing on a petition connected to the events surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. That 2004 petition had asked for congressional hearings and other investigations into whether high-level government officers had allowed the attacks to occur.

The fact that Obama threw Jones under the bus, and that with alacrity, must come as rather a rude shock to those who rely exclusively on the legacy media for their news. When he was appointed the President’s “Green Czar,” their “Ministry of Truth” apparently concluded that all citizens needed to know about Jones was that he was Mr. Sunshine.

However, as readers who follow Glenn Beck’s program on FOX News are aware, the “derogatory comment” so coyly referred to by AP was “assholes,” and, as can be seen in the Youtube pull below, Jones actually had a few other issues in addition to making “derogatory comments” and suffering from a rare nervous disorder that causes him to sign 9/11 “truther” petitions while he’s asleep.

AP informs us that, in Jones’ resignation statement, he said,

On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign agains me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.

Judging from Beck’s video clips, that’s a bit of a stretch unless Glenn somehow managed to turn up the most convincing Doppelgänger of all time. Presumably the “vicious smears” Jones refers to are similar to the “vicious smears” John Kerry complained about when the Swift Boat veterans told us the truth about him.

Der Führer out to Stud

According to Der Spiegel,

The Rainbow Group fights for AIDS prevention. In its current ad campaign, “AIDS is a Mass Murderer,” the male party to a sex act turns out to be Adolf Hitler. The calculated provocation is running up against heavy criticism – especially outside of Germany.

I can see Adolf as a poster boy for AIDS, but what’s with the face lift, the macho man body, and the hot chick? A fat lady with a Viking helmet would have been more appropriate. Spiegel informs us that Stalin and Saddam Hussein will also get a turn.