Insanity

Not exactly a question i received today but it was a thought that i recently had. History Channel has been airing a show called, America, the Story of Us. It is a show that just as poetically titled as it's theme is catching. Just the opening alone makes you lean forward in awe and think about just how far we've come (i usually think about how far we've spiraled down this dark, bleak hole).

I am something of a history buff. For the last year, i have read everything that i could get my hands on, scrounging up dollar after dollar to buy books that i have been able to read in one sitting. I have found that when books and television take history and place a human spin on it, they can open doors that most people my age find boring or shadowed in cobwebs of 6th grade memory. Some books can really make history fun and exciting and it can make you think again about what you once knew. They can bring you back to a time when you had to be by the phone to receive a phone call and even further back to when you would have had to ride a horse into town to buy goods (with gold i might add).

And this show did it. It gave a personal spin on Washington and Hamilton and all of the big names in history. But sadly, it failed desperately short.

I was surprised to see the truth in one episode that featured George Washington's real trials and tribulations during the American Revolution but it fell at the very end. Personally, i think that Washington was a substandard general. I think that a lot of people could have done the job of First President better than General Washington. If you take a moment to read, Washington's Secret War, you too might stumble onto this discovery.

I remember after i read the book, someone asked me what i thought of Washington after i read it. I know what i answered and i know what my brain was screaming and i still went with the response that years of public school implanted in me. I stammered in an unconvincing voice that he had done well at Valley Forge and that all great leaders have stumbling points and blah blah blah.

But i knew that i was wrong. I have been in a military situation and i can say from experience that he would have destroyed his army had it not been for a genius military leader from France. He didn't know what to do. It seemed that every 'noble' thing he did was in total panic and he made several wrong decisions.

Of course, the only thing that they had to say about the Whiskey Rebellion was that it was a brilliant move on Washington's part. I think it was a terrible one. He raided a state, a sovereign state, that was using whiskey as currency and he raided it with an Army! First of all, how dare he raid a state with the military! Secondly, how dare he interfere in a state that wasn't breaking any laws what so ever!

To put it bluntly, before i start to get angry and explode, every episode was like this. They glance over titillating information and plow straight into a shameful, "look-at-how-wonderful-our-empirical-government-has become-thanks-to-so-and-so" diatribe.

Over and over again, i watched every episode that aired and shuddered at almost everything that they said. They praised FDR in a light that was almost Godly. They did admit that Lincoln had done terrible things but they praised him still for saving the Union.

He didn't save the Union. He caused the deaths of over 600,000 people! That's right! He started a war with another country (the South had already seceded) and pitted brother against father and in some cases *cough* General Sherman *cough* he destroyed whole towns. Women and children included and i believe in some cases targeted.

That's right! Beloved Lincoln, champion of civil rights, had full knowledge of Sherman's murderous march and not only allowed him to commit these terrible crimes, but exalted him for it! General Sherman burned whole cities and killed wantonly. His men took whatever they wanted and burned the rest. This is the great leader that we have enshrined on our nations doorstep? We should be thanking God or whoever you believe in that he is gone and we should be promising to never commit these crimes again.

The whole day i was consumed in lies that generated from the T.V. It was like a watching a beautiful tornado destroy a helpless town. Some parts of episodes made me want to cheer their innovation at making true points of history come alive. Other parts made me want to readjust the high end on my Bull-Shit-O'Meter.

And so i came to this conclusion. I can't believe even what i see on T.V. But most importantly, i glimpsed again what i had once believed about history and just how wrong i was.

Try this... check out a book that doesn't take the beaten path and see what you believe. Pick up The Constitution in Exile, Hamilton's Curse, An Honest President, A Nation of Sheep, Legacy of Ashes, How Capitalism Saved America, Bourbon for Breakfast, A Case Against the Fed, What they Fought For, FDR's Folly, The Real Lincoln, Lincoln Unmasked, Lies my Teacher Told Me, or Lies Across America (just to name a handful of the books that i've read) and tell me that these books don't teach you more than you have learned in years of public school and government teaching programs. Tell me that they don't ring a bell. Better yet, tell me that they don't make something inside of you click into place and make you think that everything you have learned might be wrong.