American inventor and entrepreneur Henry Ford is famous not only for his
astounding success in making the automobile available to nearly every American
family in the 1920s, but also for his famous quote: �History is bunk.� Many
historians, offended by Ford�s abrupt dismissal of the subject, defensively
retort that history is not bunk and set out to prove their �case�
regarding the relevance and significance of the study of history.
The reader may be surprised to learn that on one level, I agree with
Ford. A few years ago while browsing the titles in the history section of my
local bookstore, my eyes fell upon James Loewen�s Lies My Teacher Told Me:
Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. Instantaneously, I
snatched the book from the shelf and began frantically shuffling through its
pages. Presently, I realized that Loewen had elucidated the exasperation of
countless teachers of American history, and I could barely wait to get the book
home where I could pore over his words without interruption. A sociologist by
trade, Loewen articulates brilliantly the effects upon a society when its
citizens are ignorant of their history and shines an almost blinding light on
some of the most sacrosanct American historical legends.
By and large, Americans do not consider themselves ignorant of their
history. Yet, most are still under the influence of grammar school
indoctrination in the �discovery� of America by Columbus and the myth of George
Washington�s confession to his father that he, indeed, could not tell a lie and
did, in fact, cut down the cherry tree. Sadly, in the technologically-obsessed
twenty-first century, any knowledge of history beyond these mythical snippets
is considered �onerous� or simply �extraneous� to the �real� world.
Overwhelmingly, what I hear from my college history students is that
high school history was boring, irrelevant, and largely taught to them by
teachers who had little or no passion for the subject. The classic situation is
the high school coach who is hired to supervise athletic programs on the
condition that he/she teaches a designated number of social studies courses of
which history usually comprises the majority.
In my own experience, high school history was taught by male coaches who
authoritatively lectured about U.S. history as a parent would a child, then
barked commands, like: �All right, everybody be quiet and write the answers to
the questions on page 29.� While we submissively complied, the coach sat at his
desk, clipboard and pencil in hand, diagramming football plays, resentfully
offering obligatory answers to any questions we might ask.
Nevertheless, some of us, thanks to stimulating college instructors,
learned to love history. We studied the subject in the context of the social
upheaval and cultural transformation of the 1960s and '70s. Moreover, in
awe-stricken wonder at the relevance of history to our lives and our world, we
vowed that our teaching of it would be passionate, vital, and illuminating. We
could not wait to incite a similar voracity for historical knowledge in our
students.
So upon all of the above, I reflect when I hear Henry Ford�s proclamation
that history is bunk. I believe that rather than simply defending against
Ford�s comment, the diligent historian must analyze it more deeply. First, we
must ask ourselves what would cause someone to proclaim that history is bunk?
What more should we know about Ford that might shed light on his dismissal of
history? Is it not extraordinarily relevant to understand that Ford was
passionately anti-Semitic and an ardent admirer of Hitler? In fact, when Hitler
penned his infamous Mein Kampf, a portrait of Ford rested on his writing
desk.
What might happen if this detail were included in conventional
history texts? Might it not lead to discussion of the reality that Ford was
only one of hundreds of corporate tycoons during the 1930s who admired Hitler
and helped finance his rise to power? And if Ford was only one, who were the
others? Why did they support Hitler? How did they become admirers of the most
treacherous butcher in modern history? And what happened to their support for
Hitler during World War II and after? Does their identification with his cause
have anything to do with the turn of events following World War II or even the
unfolding of events in the early twenty-first century? Are there implications
that connect with current events such as the fact that at this writing, the
sitting American president�s grandfather, Prescott Bush, a contemporary of
Ford, was one of those numerous corporate financiers of Hitler?
These are questions that historians are obligated to ask, and I do, and
in History Uncensored, I offer answers to those questions -- or at least
plausible explanations which may not be �right� in the conventional sense, but
which provide an alternative not found in �official� versions of American
history. This work is unequivocally controversial, and it is meant to be, but
as one of my students remarked after a lively discussion of its contents: �We
may not agree with you or this curriculum, but we will never forget this
course.� For me, the impact of the questions raised is far more momentous than
my students� or readers� agreement with my answers.
At the opposite end of the spectrum from Henry Ford is the philosopher,
George Santayana, whose famous quote is ubiquitous in history books and
holocaust museums: �Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat
it.� Unfortunately, some students use this quote to attempt to validate the
irrelevance of studying history. The logic goes something like: �Well, the only
thing I learn from history is that people learn nothing from history.� At that
point, I am quick to challenge the student to tell me what he/she personally
has learned from history. Almost always, the student discloses that she has
learned a great deal from history but also confesses that it feels meaningless
if the rest of society does not also learn similar lessons. At that point, I
hasten to remind the student that one cannot compel society to learn from
history, but one can learn one�s own lessons from history, and since society is
comprised of individuals, what each person learns from history has the
potential to make an enormous difference in society.
I personally feel great empathy with the student who argues in this
manner because he is articulating frustration with a society that does not
value historical knowledge. College and university budgets incessantly decrease
funds for humanities and social sciences while increasing them for engineering
and technological programs. Academia appears to be screaming loudly that only
the present and future matter. Whenever a tragic event occurs nationally, one
of the most telling and frequently repeated mantras is �we want to put this
behind us,� thereby, revealing our collective belief in the irrelevance of the
past -- a place where dark, painful events are buried, never to be unearthed and
examined for their meaning and relevance.
In my opinion, the relegating of history to an antiquated closet of
insignificance is not only intellectually unsound but fundamentally dangerous.
A people ignorant of their own history are easily deceived and exploited. For
example, our Founding Fathers wrote and spoke profusely of the
eighteenth-century Enlightenment concept of inalienable rights. It
permeates our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. For them, the term
was synonymous with human rights held by each individual by virtue of nothing
more than his/her existence. That is, one possesses inalienable rights because
one breathes air and walks on the earth. Currently, however, members of the
Bush administration, including former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge and Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia, argue that government bestows the rights
guaranteed in the Constitution upon its citizens.
In almost every history class I teach, I ask students to explain the
origin of their rights as American citizens. Typically, most assume that their
rights are �given� to them by their government. It is a rare student who has
ever considered that if the government can �give� these rights, the government
can also take them away. Few traditional history textbooks clarify the concept
of inalienable rights which has contributed, in my opinion, to several
generations of Americans who assume that the rights they daily enjoy and take
for granted are somehow bestowed by their nation�s leaders.
It is important to understand that history textbooks are the products of
corporate media, and corporate media, whether it be CNN, the New York Times,
or Bedford St. Martins Publishers is much more concerned with selling a product
than agonizing over accuracy. This is why hundreds of thousands, perhaps
millions of Americans, no longer acquire their daily news from mainstream
sources but rely on alternative sources on the Internet to inform them of
local, national, and world events.
Moreover, as Loewen explains in Lies My Teacher Told Me, public
school systems are not interested in making waves in terms of questioning the
accuracy of history textbooks. Particularly in an era of backlash against the
teaching of the theory of evolution or sex education, educators are loath to
scrutinize American history textbooks which teach, as virtually all traditional
ones do, that the United States of America is the most tolerant, moral,
non-aggressive, and benevolent nation on earth. Insufficient detail, if any, is
offered regarding Native American genocide by European settlers or the rabid
racism that motivated them from the moment they set foot on the continent. Few
textbooks analyze the persecution of labor and social justice movements by the
wealthy and powerful in America, or American imperialism which came to fruition
in the Spanish-American War, steadily burgeoning throughout the twentieth
century and which 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, �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. 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 worldview, 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.
Reference
1. Dictatorship
is the danger, The Guardian Unlimited, March 13, 2006.
Carolyn Baker, adjunct professor of history and
Managing Editor of From The Wilderness Publications, hosts her own website at www.carolynbaker.org where the book can
be purchased and where she can be contacted.