November 11th 2008
The Lies They Teach: #4 And #5
L
arry Schweikart’s 48 Liberal Lies about American History (That You Probably Learned in School) is continuing to infuriate me, which is a good thing.
I’m providing quick summaries of the lies, but the book is rich in detail and I strongly suggest you read it.
The title is almost self-explanatory. Let me just add that it is a review of college-level history text books. Here are lies four and five:
Lie #4: Harry Truman ordered the atomic bombing of Japan to intimidate the Soviets with “Atomic Diplomacy.”
Truman agreed with [James] Byrnes that use of the bomb would permit them to “out maneuver [sic] Stalin on China,” that is, negate the Yalta concessions in Manchuria and guarantee that Russia would “not get in som much on the kill” of Japan or its occupation. – Arnold Offner, “Another Such Victory,” 1999
The theory that Pres. Truman used the bomb to intimidate the Soviets instead of conquer Japan is a theory, Schweikart shows, that only an academic could concoct.
The revisionists start by revising the estimates of U.S. war deaths that would occur Operation Olympics by first declaring the stated estimates wildly over-estimated – the “casualty myth,” they call it – then conjuring up their own, lower, estimates based on numerous false assumptions. They also reject actual documents in Japanese and Soviet archives in favor of their own conclusions – even the Japanese deputy chief of staff of the Japanese Army General Staff, who wrote, “There is nothing we can do about the … atomic bomb. That nullifies everything.”
Schweikart didn’t go into it, but I believe this lie is fired by elitist fires. Truman had the misfortune of assuming office, unelected, following the most elite of all elites, FDR. This haberdasher from the Midwest could not be allowed to do anything right, and liberal elite historians have worked hard to miscast him.
Lie #5: John F. Kennedy was killed by LBJ and a secret team to keep him from getting us out of Vietnam.
This is another of the lies Schweikart includes not so much because it is dwelt on in college texts, but because liberal profs, fearful of being called part of the education establishment, frequently let students go to sources beyond the required text books – books like Barr McClellan’s Blood, Money & Power: How L.B.J. Killed J.F.K.
I’m sure I don’t have to re-hash this for C-SM’s audience; suffice it to say that Schweikart presents five different JFK myths and quickly dispatches them all in a flood of big facts and juicy details, including good stuff on Jack’s real position on Vietnam vs. the recasting of that position for the benefit of Bobby.
Previous in this series:
Of course, Washington spent much of his administration seeking foreign alliances, so any historian should ponder that line from Washington’s final address before drawing such a simplistic conclusion. Schweikart shows that Washington wanted about 25 years of breathing room without hard set alliances so the nation could get strong enough to stand alone, without alliances, if need be. Washington was particularly concerned with alliances entangled by old European prejudices, that he wished to leave to the Old World.
Liberal historians want to look at wars like the Mexican American War and our campaign in the Philippines as proof of our societal racism, because we wage war against brown people. And when we leave when we’re done, in order to not allow us to be disproved as imperialists, these historians make the case that we left because … you guessed it: We don’t like brown people.
Metro State College is investigating a professor who asked students to write an essay critical of Republican vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin. One student said the instructor singled out Republican students in the class and allowed others to ridicule them.
