Tag: history

A rambling riff on the oddness of New Orleans as part of this cycle’s NOLA/Gulf Blogathon, organized by Louisiana 1976 over at dkos…

Lately it’s become apparent to some of us that if one desires to see one’s diary reach the rec list, one’s chances are greatly improved if the title includes a hint of conversion to Obamaism, a pillorying of Hillary, or the old stand-by, BREAKING!!!  Now, by nature, historioranters don’t get to shout “breaking” all that often, but since you all seem to have abandoned Mike Gravel, and have said everything that could possibly be said about Barrackemiah and/or Billary, I’m left with little choice but to pander like Senator Clinton at a Great Silent Majority rally.

So join me, if you will, just outside the Cave of the Moonbat, where tonight we’ll be scanning the skies, on the lookout for a school-bus-sized piece of space junk that NASA tells us (well, told us – the subject of this story broke literally and figuratively between 1973 and 1979) could crash/land almost anywhere on Earth.  Perhaps in our observations, we’ll even get a glimpse of that rarest of celestial phenomena: A presidential candidate with a viable, workable, ambitious space policy.

Now that even the corporatist beltway elite lackey media has slowly come to recognize the inevitability of the political version of the unbeatable New England Patriots losing the big one it’s time to put the intramural pissing matches aside and to start reorganizing for a shot at the true target. The Hillary Rodham-Clinton campaign now faces fourth and thirty-two, has the ball at it’s own twenty yard line, is down by eight and there are sixteen seconds left in the Super Bowl. It’s not exactly officially in the books yet but the fat lady is humming and the opposing team has just administered the traditional Gatorade baptism to their head coach on the sidelines.

For anyone born before 1970 or so, there are certain images that are come to mind whenever the name “Iran” is uttered: stern, bearded men in black robes, angry crowds, graphics depicting blindfolded American citizens with things like “Day 334” stamped over them, Ollie North bravely disgracing his uniform and perjuring himself, John McSame exploring the intersection of 1960s pop music and the idea of raining death from the skies.  In short, the past 30 years haven’t exactly been a model of how nations ought to think of one another.

Join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, where tonight we’ll take a last look – a Parthian shot, if you will – at the recent history of Iran.  Maybe, just maybe, we’ll get past some of the more extreme caricatures the Traditional Media has been foisting upon us – and perhaps be able to start formulating a de-Bushified foreign policy that relies less on blustering incompetence and more on genuine historical understanding.

http://digilander.libero.it/Bo…

Historical revisionists of American Indian history portray indigenous people being as violent as white Europeans were before they arrived on this continent and after settlement. Consequently, HBO’s “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” was no exception in the scene with Sitting Bull and Col Nelson Miles on the Buffalo Robe, as Miles justified the genocide he was committing as “You were as violent as we are, we’re doing the same thing to you that you did to them (paraphrasing).”

Racism is based on ignorance and is passed down generationally.  One racist adult caretaker may infect a few children with their racism; however, one racist film or television show would infect many more and more deeply ingrain any racism that already was in existence in my opinion. Examples such as in the following video have contributed to anti – Indian sentiments in the popular American culture in the relevant generations who viewed such films.

Crossposted at Native American Netroots

One would think that a person who has lived through as much history as John McThuselah would know a bit more about it, but as we are all too painfully aware, historical savvy isn’t exactly a wingnut strong suit.  It’s thus sorta-understandable – even as it remains completely unforgivable – that Angry Gramps would be unable to distinguish between Sunnis and Shias, Arabs and Persians, or really, anyone east of the Ural Mountains.  To the bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran set, “they” are all the same anyway, so any historical evidence that might indicate an outcome (of say, an invasion) other than their liberators-and-roses predictions can be safely disregarded.

Thankfully, we here in the reality-based community know better.  Join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, for a look at Iran in the 20th century – and hopefully a slightly better explanation for why the US government is not particularly loved in that part of the world than that old patriotic pabulum, “they hate us for our freedoms.”

This is (a small part of a) cross-post (excerpted by permission) by THE ENVIRONMENTALIST‘s Managing Editor:

In her recent speech at the Conference on World Affairs, Rachel Maddow cited James Madison’s warning about the unitary executive, the propensity of an unchecked executive branch to lean toward war, whereas the legislature would be more likely to debate the issue before moving toward conflict.

Maddow’s supposition, that the Bush administration’s seeming incompetence, its torture memos, its rush to war, was by design — Bush and Cheney’s direct effort to shift power to the executive and, thereby, to shift the entire country to a more warlike stance — does have historical precedence.

I’m not referring to Madison, though he did warn of this, or Jefferson, who raised prescient concern about undue influence, but earlier in history to the systems that Madison and Jefferson used as the inspiration for their grand experiment: The Roman Republic of Caesar’s time and the Greek democracy of Solon.

This is not to say that George W. Bush is Julius Caesar or that any of his lawgivers (like the ones who approved that torture memo) are Solon. But there are interesting parallels to the way Caesar and his contemporaries used war to further their wealth and political ambitions, as well as to the actions that Solon’s contemporaries took to undermine codified law…

Highly recommend you link to link to the whole essay for the point it makes about Bush and McCain’s wars.

Illuminating and frightening.  

According to the latest wire reports, the verdict is in: even (and perhaps especially) he who would be the next Bush doesn’t know crap about Iran.  This is unfortunate; one would think the disastrous invasion of Mesopotamia would’ve reminded us that we’re talking about a region of the world that breaks empires as a matter of course.

Tonight’s historiorant seeks to address just one of the lessons that needn’t have cost us 4000+ of our own soldiers’ lives to learn: that failing to accurately assess an enemy’s capabilities frequently plays a major role in victories and defeats in Southwest Asia.  Marcus Licinius Crassus didn’t appreciate that fact, nor did Hulagu Khan centuries later.  Join in the Cave of the Moonbat, and we’ll see if we can’t help to educate our misguided Republican brethren before they foist yet another hotheaded dumbass upon the American citizenry – and hopefully forestall our getting enmeshed in yet another Carrhae, Ain Jalut, or Chaldiran.