{"id":97157,"date":"2017-08-21T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2017-08-21T11:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=97157"},"modified":"2018-12-20T09:48:07","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T09:48:07","slug":"charlottesville-myths-questions-fake-history-and-deeper-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/08\/charlottesville-myths-questions-fake-history-and-deeper-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlottesville: Myths & Questions – Fake History and Deeper Thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"

16 Aug 2017 – <\/em>I think there are many questions that surround the recent deplorable and horrendous\u00a0incidents in Charlottesville, Virginia, but our media, our \u201chistorians,\u201d and too many academicians fix or fixate on one line of questioning or inquiry.\u00a0 Then, they \u201cstick to their guns,\u201d shut off further investigation, further probing.<\/p>\n

About the Lee statue, I had to wonder: \u201cWhy now?\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been to Charlottesville a few times in recent years; I have thought\u00a0it one of the more pleasant small cities in the U.S.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how long Lee\u2019s statue has graced the park there (frankly, I never looked for it), but I do believe R.E.L. has been dead and gone about 1 & 1\/2 centuries!\u00a0 (Side bar: After meeting Lee\u2013was it at Andersonville?\u2013to end the hostilities, U.S. Grant\u2013not known for compliments or blandishments\u2013told his comrades he thought Lee one of the noblest human beings he had ever met\u2013\u201cthe first gentleman of the South,\u201d if memory serves me\u2026.<\/p>\n

Was it really necessary to remove the statue now?\u00a0 Wasn\u2019t that setting up a conflict?\u00a0 Is it too much to expect our elected officials to exercise foresight and good judgment?\u00a0 And, why permit a rightist group to protest the proposed removal of the statue, and then fail to enforce adequate police protection and enforcement when \u201coutsiders\u201d from the Left and the Right show up armed and prepared for battle?<\/p>\n

The whole operation sounds like the Keystone Kops!\u00a0 (Even a crashing helicopter gets blamed on \u201cNazis\u201d!)\u00a0 There is more than a little infantilism in the way our MSM immediately places all blame for all odious actions on the doorsteps of the most despised groups!\u00a0 Didn\u2019t we used to see this kind of reflexive (but not reflective) behavior in the pre-Civil Rights South?\u00a0 Then the despised groups were \u201cthe Niggers.\u201d\u00a0 One just had to attach that name to any kind of deplorable act\u2013and it was \u201ccase dismissed\u201d and \u201chang them!\u201d\u00a0 Have we learned so little from Martin Luther King about the need to judge people according to \u201cthe content of their character\u201d and \u201cnot the color of their skin\u201d?\u00a0 When did we fall back into simplistic mind-traps?\u00a0 Too much television?\u00a0 Too much tweeting?\u00a0 Santayana warned: those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them!<\/p>\n

We have not learned well!\u00a0 We skim the surface of a world of facts and there are precious few guides to take us deeper, beneath the waves, to explore the\u00a0living, coral reefs.\u00a0 As Barbara Tuchman notes in her redoubtable THE MARCH OF FOLLY, we are apt to bluster and assume improbable and insupportable positions, and we dare not \u201close face.\u201d\u00a0 We dig in our heels\u2013even into our graves and others\u2019!<\/p>\n

The media, and our elite, \u201cDeep State,\u201d etc. encouraged Trump\u2019s campaign to give him primacy above the other 16 Republican contenders\u2013lots of free publicity; \u201cface-time,\u201d etc.\u00a0 They encouraged his candidacy to sucker-punch the Right, never believing Trump could prevail against HRC.\u00a0 (I suspect they sucker-punched Bernie\u2019s supporters, too; again, to give HRC\u2019s very flawed campaign a gloss of legitimacy!)<\/p>\n

\u201cFake news\u201d is not nearly as big a problem as what I call \u201cfake history\u201d!\u00a0 We grow up with it, imbibe it with mama\u2019s milk and sugary cereal.\u00a0 The Civil War is one gross example!<\/p>\n

A lot of \u201cprivileged,\u201d \u201cvictorious\u201d\u00a0\u201cYankees\u201d have been harping on \u201cignorant, racist, redneck\u201d Southerners for generations!\u00a0 (\u201cTwo things are infinite,\u201d Einstein remarked: \u201cthe Universe, and human stupidity!\u201d)\u00a0 In fact, most Southern whites back in\u00a0Lee\u2019s time were poor as dirt \u201cshare-croppers\u201d scraping by on the boss-man\u2019s\u00a0land; and if they were \u201cfortunate\u201d enough to have their own parcel of land and one or two slaves working with them, they were all\u2013blacks, as well as\u00a0whites\u2013better off for that!\u00a0 (And, they were probably better off\u2013or no worse off\u2013than the \u201cindentured servants\u201d flooding northern shores, with women slaving away dawn to dusk in the textile mills of New England, bent over looms,\u00a0and new men dying in the coal pits of Pennsylvania.)\u00a0 The \u201cplantation system\u201d had been with the American \u201cRepublic\u201d from the beginning; it\u2019s a major part of the Constitution\u2013that 6\/10 human clause!\u00a0 (Imagine: one rich bastard with a hundred and fifty slaves\u2013about how many Washington and Jefferson had!\u2013gets 1 vote for himself and 90 more for his slaves!)\u00a0 That system made Northerners fat and wealthy, too, helped build\u00a0the banks and factories, and built the ships that sold cotton products to England, and picked up rum and more slaves on the return voyage!\u00a0 It worked quite well\u2013for the fat cats!\u2013until the North became an industrializing powerhouse\u2013with better railroads, armaments, transports, communications, and 3 times as many people as the South!\u00a0 Then the North decided it didn\u2019t really need the South so much, but it did need to expand into the \u201cWestern territories\u201d it had conquered from Mexico and now needed to conquer from the soon-to-be massacred Plains \u201cIndians\u201d (called \u201csavages,\u201d btw by our hero of \u201cdemocracy,\u201d the principal author of our Declaration of Independence!).<\/p>\n

We\u2019d best get our history right!\u00a0 There have been terrible abuses on all sides.\u00a0 All sides were at fault in Charlottesville, including our elected officials.\u00a0 (As far as I can tell, the police there were \u201cjust following orders.\u201d\u00a0 Not a great rationale, of course, but it does attribute blame to the dumbfounded\u00a0officials who should have known better!)<\/p>\n

\u201cWhoever controls the information controls the imagination,\u201d Orwell taught us.\u00a0 In the US today, information is controlled by 6 major corporations!\u00a0 From the cartoons that the kids watch on weekends to the spurious \u201cfake news\u201d channels that glut television, radio, newspapers and the Internet\u20136 major league \u201cguideposts\u201d in a nation of 1\/3 billion diverse, questioning, struggling and\u00a0credulous, and sometimes seeking\u00a0souls!<\/p>\n

No wonder we have so much trouble making peace abroad!\u00a0 How can we have peace abroad when we have no peace within?\u00a0 If we immediately disparage our \u201cenemies\u201d as \u201clunatics,\u201d how can we trust them, how can we trust ourselves?<\/p>\n

We are as divided as we have been at any time I can remember\u2013as divided as we were when I marched against war during the Vietnam War!\u00a0\u00a0Some of those who marched with me, ate the National Guard\u2019s teargas with me, took the slurs, lost jobs or friends or family\u2013denounced the departing or returning soldiers!\u00a0 But I spoke out against that, too.\u00a0 What was the point?\u00a0 They were doing the best they knew\u2013just as I was.\u00a0 We needed dialogue, not antipathy.\u00a0 It was the higher-up-liars and dissimulators who needed lambasting\u2013not the foot-soldiers for war or peace!\u00a0 As often as not, foot-soldiers are victims, too: those who were never taught how to think for themselves!<\/p>\n

We must begin again!\u00a0 Learn to think clearly again.\u00a0 Brush off the cobwebs that choke our minds!\u00a0 The enemy of my enemy is NOT my enemy!\u00a0 He\/she\u00a0is simply\u2013the enemy of my enemy!\u00a0 In time, he\/she may become a friend.\u00a0 We may become allies in some matters, adversarial in others.\u00a0 But, we had better talk things through, we had better\u00a0learn and re-learn how to\u00a0communicate with more than 140 characters!\u00a0 Share music; share songs; share books.\u00a0 Honor one\u2019s heritage and respect another\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh what a crooked web we weave<\/em>
\nwhen first we practice to deceive.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u2013Sir Walter Scott<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

______________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dr. Gary Steven Corseri is a m<\/em>ember of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment.<\/a> He<\/em> has published and posted articles, fiction and poems at hundreds of venues, including,<\/em> TMS (Transcend Media Service<\/a>)<\/a>, The New York Times, Village Voice, Redbook Magazine and<\/em> Counterpunch.\u00a0 He has published 2 novels and 2 collections of poetry, and his dramas have been produced on<\/em> PBS-Atlanta and elsewhere.\u00a0 He has performed his poems at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum and has taught in universities in the US and Japan, and in US public schools and prisons.\u00a0 Contact: Gary_Corseri@comcast.net<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About the Lee statue, I had to wonder: \u201cWhy now?\u201d Was it really necessary to remove the statue now? Wasn\u2019t that setting up a conflict? Is it too much to expect our elected officials to exercise foresight and good judgment? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}