Fighting history hoaxes

May 11, 2007

Daily Kos I don’t get to daily. But here’s a post I did see that all history teachers ought to read, if only to raise their consciousness about the frauds that plague us every day: Help Fight Fake History that Powers the American Right.

Fight fake historyChris Rodda needs help supporting her research against all the old dogs of history revisionism, and the post from Troutfishing goes through most of the dishonor roll: D. James Kennedy, David Barton, Catherine Millard, and Chuck Norris

Rodda’s blog series can be found at Talk2Action.

My interest in getting history done right was kindled when high school teachers mentioned early versions of David Barton’s work — stuff that showed up on tests, though anyone who had read our texts and had a passing knowledge of real history would have known was in error. As a staffer in the U.S. Senate I had to got to read letters from people who bought the Barton tales lock, stock, and monkey barrel, and who consequently felt that everyone else on Earth was lying to them.

I wish Rodda luck.

4 Comments | Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Bogus history, Capturing history, Citizenship, Current History, Curricula, Education, History, History Revisionism, Hoaxes | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

D. James Kennedy suffers heart attack

January 2, 2007

Browsing at Positive Liberty today I first saw the news that the Rev. D. James Kennedy suffered a heart attack, and is hospitalized. Kennedy is the head of Coral Ridge Ministries in Florida, and a leader of the history revisionist movement to rewrite especially textbooks to argue that the U.S. should have a religiously-based government.

It appears the news didn’t get out quickly. The Miami Herald had a story just today, though Kennedy’s heart attack was last Thursday. Jonathan Rowe urges a speedy recovery, so Kennedy can continue to provide material for that blog. I think there’s enough material for this blog without Kennedy, but I wish him a complete recovery anyway.

2 Comments | America's founding, Bad Quotes, Creationism, History, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Science and faith, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Washington’s Valley Forge vision that never was

January 2, 2007

At Boston 1775, J. L. Bell discusses what is known about the accuracy of reports that Gen. George Washington had a vision of an angel while the Continental Army camped at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. I cannot improve on Mr. Bell’s telling of the story, so go read it there.

7 Comments | 1776, Accuracy, America's founding, Bogus history, George Washington, History, History blogs, History Revisionism, Hoaxes | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

‘First, Roy Moore came for Keith Ellison . . .’

December 26, 2006

While denying that they have any racist or other xenophobic intent, critics of Minnesota’s U.S. Representative-elect Keith Ellison, like the abominable Dennis Prager, continue to try to gin up reasons why he cannot carry his own scriptures to Congress, why he cannot have the rights that every school child in America has, because the scriptures Ellison carries are Islamic.

Except for Roy Moore, the Xian Nationalist, unreconstructed Christian Reconstructionist, and Christian Dominionist who probably got the memorandum about how they aren’t supposed to talk about it in public, but who lets it fly anyway.

Representing the Great Booboisie, Roy Moore says Ellison should not be seated in Congress at all.

Alabama’s voters were wise to reject Roy Moore as governor, after Moore burned the people so badly when they trusted him to be chief justice of the state’s supreme court, and he instead turned the court into a circus of religious pomposity and disregard for the laws of religious freedom. Another History Blog Fisks the manifold, manifest errors Moore makes.

I cannot escape the feeling that Moore is speaking for most Reconstructionists and Dominionists, Read the rest of this entry »

9 Comments | Accuracy, America's founding, Bad Quotes, Bill of Rights, Bogus history, Civil Rights, First Amendment, Freedom - Political, Good Quotes, History Revisionism, Patriotism, Religious Freedom, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

David Irving out of jail – no longer denies Holocaust

December 21, 2006

Former historian David Irving was released from jail in Austria early, on December 21. Irving claims that he no longer denies the Holocaust.

Former historian David Irving, in handcuffs, released from Austrian jail. Reuters photoDetails are in the Daily Telegraph from England.

In several European nations, including Austria, denial of the Holocaust not only is historical error, it’s also against criminal law.

He was arrested in November 2005 on charges related to two speeches and a newspaper interview he gave in Austria in 1989 in which he called the gas chambers a “fairy tale” and claimed that Hitler had no role in the Holocaust, even “offering his hand to protect the Jews”.

The charges covered statements he had made, such as questioning the accepted version of the Holocaust. He argued that “millions of people were led to believe” an “absolute absurdity”. A jury found him guilty of denying the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes.

Irving had appealed his 3-year sentence as too long. He serves the rest on probation.

Irving earlier sued U.S. historian Deborah Lipstadt for libel, in London, after she had called him a Holocaust denier. In a long and famous trial, she was found not to have libeled Irving, though under British law, truth is not a defense as it is in the U.S.

While it offends my First Amendment sensibilities to criminalize the making of such claims, one wonders about the intelligence or goals of people who deny the Holocaust.

Under California law, judicial note has been taken that the Holocaust occurred. It is a fact of history. U.S. law allows more robust, and offensive, discussion of the topic.

But in the end, the Holocaust is a fact. It’s an ugly, brutal and regrettable fact. Denying it occurred at all, or to the scope and degree it occurred, is only an odd form of denial of reality.

Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, Holocaust, Holocaust denial | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Intelligent design advocates bank on ignorance

December 13, 2006

In the later years of his life, after he was elected a Member of Congress from Florida in 1963, Claude Pepper’s appearances on Capitol Hill always generated memories from politicos attending, of the 1950 campaign that took away his U.S. Senate seat a decade earlier. It was a nasty campaign. Because he had actually met Joseph Stalin, Pepper, a Democrat, was called “Red Pepper” by his opponent George Smathers, a moniker designed to produce a particular reaction in Florida’s conservative but uneducated voters. Smathers never hesitated to point out that Harvard-educated Pepper had learned “under the Harvard Crimson.” But that was just the start.

There are a few recordings of the breathless claims against Pepper by campaign stumpers, and they are fantastic. Pepper’s family morality was impugned — the speaker notes that Pepper’s sister was a “well-known thespian” as if it were some sort of a sin to be an actor. Pepper himself was accused of “matriculating in public” all through his college career. It would seem normal that a college student would enroll for classes, no?

Of course, the speaker was hoping the audience wouldn’t know the meaning of those large words, and might confuse them for something else less savory. Pepper’s opponent banked on the ignorance of a large portion of voters — and won.

Do campaigns on ignorance work today?

The Discovery Institute comes now with a press release that announces, in rather breathless fashion, that Judge John Jones used the plaintiff’s suggested findings of fact in his decision against intelligent design in schools, in Pennsylvania a year ago. Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Bogus history, Evolution, History Revisionism, Intelligent Design, Law, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

The rise of David Barton and bogus history

November 28, 2006

Some people were relieved when voodoo history maven Davin Barton’s term as vice chair of the Texas Republican Party expired.

Dallas Morning News editorial writer and occasional columnist William McKenzie warns that we have not seen the last of Barton’s involvement in politics — and textbooks are in Barton’s gunsights.

McKenzie wrote about Barton in the November 28 paper:

Pay attention to his work, because, as Newsweek reported after the election, the religious right is at a crossroads. With big-name leaders declining, lesser-knowns like Mr. Barton will fill the gap. And they will come with their own approach.

The most interesting thing I learned from him was that the next wave will revolve around networks of activists, not the big names who lobby Washington. Look for e-mail blasts that start with a small group upset about a comment or decision about abortion, homosexuality or textbooks. In the decentralized technological world, a David Barton doesn’t need the podium of a Jerry Falwell or a Ralph Reed to trigger a prairie fire.

In other words, watch him.

2 Comments | Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Bogus history, Education, Freedom - Political, History, History Revisionism, Politics, Textbook Selection, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

National Humanities Medal to Bernard Lewis . . .

November 26, 2006

Generally there is just too much going on to follow all of it in the news, let alone understand it.

PanArmenian.net complains that historian Bernard Lewis’ being honored with the National Humanities Medal is a problem, labeling him a denier of the Armenian genocide. He was found to be so by a French court (does that increase his appeal to Bush?).

Lewis’ work is influential — here is a 2004 Washington Monthly piece by Newsweek correspondent Michael Hirsch, pointing out that Lewis is the guy who probably first coined the phrase “clash of civilizations” with regard to international relations with modern Islamic nations. Is he just one more Princeton University faculty member, like Ben Bernanke, who happens to have the ear of the President?

Teachers of history certainly should be familiar with the controversy over the Armenian genocide, its relation to post-World War I history, its salience in European politics today, and its effects on U.S. history (and especially U.S. literature — think William Saroyan, George Deukmejian, etc.). I admit I know very little about Lewis. I don’t know enough about him to make a judgment on whether the charges of the Armenian partisans are fair.

In my previous post I noted the rise of a superstar natural history prof, in England. Here in the U.S. the National Humanities Medal was awarded to nine people and one institution — one of the people is a Nobel Prize winner — and the news sank like a small, round stone in a small pond, without making much of a ripple.

If we can’t name some of the stars among historians and others in the humanities, are we doing our jobs? Are our newspapers and broadcasters doing their jobs if we don’t get this news?

Did President Bush honor a denier of the Armenian genocide? Our future relations with Islamic nations and peoples may depend on the answer. I don’t know. Do you?

Here is Lewis’ biography from the awards press release:

Bernard Lewis is considered by many to be the greatest living historian of the Muslim world. He has pursued his primary interest, the history of the Ottoman Empire, producing groundbreaking works including The Emergence of Modern Turkey, The Political Language of Islam, The Muslim Discovery of Europe, The Jews of Islam, and Islam and the West. His most recent publication is From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East. Other titles by Lewis: The Crisis of Islam: Holy War & Unholy Terror; What Went Wrong: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East; Western Impact and the Middle Eastern Response; A Middle East Mosaic: Fragments of Life, Letters and History; The Multiple Identities of the Middle East; and The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years. Born in London, England, in 1916, Lewis became attracted to languages and history at an early age. Lewis’s interest in history was stirred thanks to his bar mitzvah ceremony, during which he received as a gift a book on Jewish history. He graduated in 1936 from the then School of Oriental Studies (SOAS, now School of Oriental and African Studies) at the University of London with a B.A. in history with special reference to the Near and Middle East, and obtaining his Ph.D. three years later, also from SOAS, specializing in the history of Islam. During the Second World War, Lewis served in the British Army in the Royal Armoured Corps and Intelligence Corps in 1940-41, and was then attached to a department of the Foreign Office. After the war he returned to SOAS, and in 1949 he was appointed to the new chair in Near and Middle Eastern history at the age of 33. In 1974 Lewis accepted a joint position at Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study, marking the beginning of the most prolific period in his research career. In addition, it was in the United States that Lewis became a public intellectual. After his retirement from Princeton in 1986 as the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Lewis held many visiting appointments. Lewis has been a naturalized citizen of the United States since 1982.

3 Comments | Armenian genocide, Bogus history, History, History Revisionism, Holocaust denial, Politics, Voodoo history | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Voodoo historian: Harun Yahya and anti-evolution in Turkey

November 22, 2006

Voodoo historian and crank scientist “Harun Yahya” (it’s a pseudonym) has done the Rev. D. James Kennedy one better — he’s sending books to school libraries in Turkey claiming that Darwin is responsible for terrorism.

For years U.S. creationists have bragged about their reach into Turkey and Islam. Whether Moslems regard it as a toe-hold for Christianity, or whether American creationists have any compunction about working to stir up religious strife in Moslem nations, sane people who work for peace, justice and knowledge should be concerned.

In a chutzpa-filled claim that would take away the breath of Baron Munchausen, Yahya claims that Darwin is reponsible for fascism, communism and terrorism — never mind that fascists, communists and terrorists generally denounce Darwin and espouse the views of Yahya on evolution.

Read the rest of this entry »

19 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, History Revisionism, Science and faith, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

From the Archives: For Thanksgiving, the Mayflower Compact

November 22, 2006

It is the day before Thanksgiving, a holiday generally associated with the English colonists of New England. What better time to re-run a piece on the Mayflower Compact and its religious implications? Originally, this desultory ran here, on July 26, 2006.

Dispatches from the Culture Wars features a set of comments on an interview right-right-wing pundit John Lofton did with Roy Moore, the former chief justice of Alabama’s Supreme Court who lost his job when he illegally tried to force his religion on the court and on Alabama. This year Moore ran for governor of Alabama, losing in the primary election.

One of the grandest canards in current thought about U.S. history is that the Mayflower Compact set up a theocracy in Massachusetts. Lofton and Moore banter about it as if it were well established fact — or as if, as I suspect, neither of them has looked at the thing in a long time, and that neither of them has ever diagrammed the operative sentence in the thing.

The Mayflower Compact was an agreement between the people in two religiously disparate groups, that among them they would fairly establish a governing body to fairly make laws, and that they would abide by those laws. Quite the opposite of a theocracy, this was the first time Europeans set up in the New World a government by consent of the governed.

That is something quite different from a theocracy. Read the rest of this entry »

10 Comments | America's founding, Bad Quotes, Bogus history, Good Quotes, History, History Revisionism, Religious Freedom, Thanksgiving, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

But, did George really say it?

November 19, 2006

I have nothing new or enlightening to add to the discussion about whether George Washington actually added “so help me, God” to his oath of office when he assumed the presidency of the United States. So let me merely point you to History is Elementary, where the issue is covered very well.

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, America's founding, Good Quotes, History, History Revisionism, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Anti-First Amendment propaganda infects MSM

October 1, 2006

Conservatives complain constantly that “mainstream media” (or “MSM” as it is usually abbreviated in right-wing blogs, derisively) are biased to the left. That’s much contrary to my experience, as a reporter, as a PR flack, and as a consumer of news.

I do expect a striving for balance, however. So I was surprised to find, in an on-line test of American history and government at the site of Newsweek Magazine, that conservative misinformation about religious freedom had crept into “MSM.” A poster, Bernarda, pointed to the poll in comments to an earlier post.

When I saw this question, I rather expected Newsweek might have made the turn to the right — but I answered as the law is anyway. As you can see from what I copied off the answer screen, below, Newsweek’s poll said the legal answer is wrong:

 

2. The idea that in America there should be a “wall of separation” between church and state appears in:

  
 

The Constitution is not correct.
Thomas Jefferson’s letters
—Percentage of seniors who scored correctly: 27.2 percent

The idea that there should be a wall of separation between church and state was rather carefully and ambitiously developed in law by George Mason, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in Virginia, starting in 1776 with the Virginia Bill of Rights, and perhaps climaxing in 1786 when Madison engineered the passage of Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom (one of the three things Jefferson thought noteworthy for his tombstone, above even his two-terms as president), and continuing through the adoption of the Bill of Rights. Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments | 1776, America's founding, First Amendment, History Revisionism, Religious Freedom, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

History revisionism in China

September 11, 2006

Over the past 40 years China has complained that Japanese history textbooks play down the brutal occupation of China, by Japan, during World War II. Japanese history texts have struggled with how to present World War II since the 1950s — generally coming donw on the side of ignoring most of the nastier history.

Oh, irony! China is now revising its own texts, and leaving out much of the history of modern communism in China that many communists would like to forget ever happened. This comes when China is financing classes for U.S. kids, classes that paint a too-rosy picture, some argue.

History revisionism is alive and well, around the world.

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Current History, History Revisionism, Textbooks | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

History repeating: Chamberlain, or Churchill?

August 31, 2006

Santayana’s warning to the ill-educated rests, sometimes uneasily, at the opening of this blog — a warning to get history, and get history right.

Presidents in sticky situations have occasionally suggested their domestic critics were less than patriotic.  Some claim the current administration has made this a standard claim against almost all criticism of foreign policy.  In speeches to the American Legion meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, both Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and President George Bush criticized their critics.  (Here’s the transcript of Rumsfeld’s remarks, from Stars & Stripes; here is the transcript of Bush’s remarks from Salt Lake City’s Deseret News.)

Here are Rumsfeld’s words that sent so many to their history books; Rumsfeld said:

It was a time when a certain amount of cynicism and moral confusion set in among Western democracies. When those who warned about a coming crisis, the rise of fascism and nazism, they were ridiculed or ignored. Indeed, in the decades before World War II, a great many argued that the fascist threat was exaggerated or that it was someone else’s problem. Some nations tried to negotiate a separate peace, even as the enemy made its deadly ambitions crystal clear. It was, as Winston Churchill observed, a bit like feeding a crocodile, hoping it would eat you last.

There was a strange innocence about the world. Someone recently recalled one U.S. senator’s reaction in September of 1939 upon hearing that Hitler had invaded Poland to start World War II. He exclaimed:

“Lord, if only I had talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided!”

I recount that history because once again we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism. Today — another enemy, a different kind of enemy — has made clear its intentions with attacks in places like New York and Washington, D.C., Bali, London, Madrid, Moscow and so many other places. But some seem not to have learned history’s lessons.

(Someone has already wondered whether Rumsfeld got the quote right, and to what senator it might be blamed; Idaho’s Sen. William Borah is the likely candidate, according to The American Prospect.)

Rumsfeld’s example should get your blood heated up, if not boiling.  Problem is, according to Keith Olberman, part of the example should cut against Rumsfeld:  It was Neville Chamberlain’s government who criticized Winston Churchill as being in error.  Had the government only listened to the dissenters, many lives might have been saved, the war shortened, etc., etc.  Olberman’s opinion is worth reading through to the end, and it’s available at Crooks and Liars.

Sometimes it’s necessary to know more than the history; it’s necessary to know literature, too.  “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!” wrote Sir Walter Scott.

Tip o’ the old scrub brush to Pharyngula.

Leave a Comment » | Current History, Dissent, First Amendment, Freedom - Political, Good Quotes, History Revisionism, Patriotism, Winston Churchill | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Mermelstein: Holocaust remembrance hero

August 28, 2006

In early August 1985, Melvin Mermelstein struck a powerful blow against bogus history and historical hoaxes. Mel won a decision in a California court, in a contract case.

A group of Holocaust deniers had offered a $50,000 reward for anyone who could prove that the Holocaust actually happened. Mermelstein had watched his family marched to the gas chambers, and could testify. He offered his evidence. The Holocaust deniers, of course, had no intention of paying up. They dismissed any evidence offered as inadequate, and continued to claim no one could prove that the Holocaust actually occurred.

Mermelstein, however, was a businessman. He knew that the offer of the reward was a sweepstakes, a form of contract. He knew it was enforceable in court. And he sued to collect. The issue in court would be, was Mermelstein’s evidence sufficient?

Mermelstein’s lawyer had a brilliant idea. He petitioned the court to take “judicial note” of the fact of the Holocaust. Judicial note means that a fact is so well established that it doesn’t need to be evidenced when it is introduced in court — such as, 2+2=4, the freezing point of water is 32 degrees Fahrenheit, 0 degrees Celsius, etc.

The court ruled that the evidence presented overwhelmingly established that the Holocaust had occurred — the court made judicial note of the Holocaust. That ruling meant that, by operation of law, Mermelstein won the case. The only thing for the judge to do beyond that was award the money, and expenses and damages.

You can read the case and other materials at the Nizkor Holocaust remembrance site.

Appalachian State University takes the Holocaust seriously — there is a program of study on the issue, recently reported by the Mountain Times (the school is in Boone, North Carolina — not sure where the newspaper is).

Teaching the Holocaust to Future Generations

Mountain Times, August 17, 2006

As co-directors of Appalachian State University’s Center for Judaic, Holocaust and Peace Studies, Rennie Brantz and Zohara Boyd are always eager to expand and improve the center’s methods of education. Seldom, though, does this involve airfare.

Brantz and Boyd recently visited Israel to participate in the Fifth International Conference for Education: Teaching the Holocaust to Future Generations. The four-day conference was held in late June at Yad Vashem, an institute and museum in Jerusalem that specializes in the Nazi Holocaust.

“Yad Vashem is an incredible institute,” Brantz said. “It was founded in the ’50s to remember and commemorate those who perished in the Holocaust, and has been the premier international research institute dealing with the Holocaust.”

As Santayana advises, we remember the past in order to prevent its recurring. Clearly, this is a past we need to work harder at remembering.

28 Comments | Bogus history, Education, Freedom - Political, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, Holocaust, Holocaust denial, Law, School discipline, Voodoo history | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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