Shame on Texas: Tinkering with the Truth

This article was written several years ago by Michael Streich

College students in American History survey courses are often amazed to learn that George Washington never really chopped down a cherry tree or that Columbus did not sail from Spain to prove that earth was round and not flat. They may even learn that Patrick Henry may never have said “Give me liberty or give me death.” Historical myths will always be part of a national psyche. In Texas, however, the rewriting of history standards, approved on May 21^st by the State Board of Education, will subject students to ten years of ideologically based revisionism.

 

When Educators Tinker with the Truth

 

During the 1930s in Germany, the Nazi regime revamped educational standards to conform to ideological prerogatives, excising all mention of Jews or their contributions in Germany’s past. The infamous Berlin book burning in 1933 signaled the attack on truth. In Stalinist Russia, history texts purged all references to anti-Stalinist movements such as the Kronstadt Uprising of 1921.

 

In Texas schools, Thomas Jefferson will be punished for his views on the separation of church and state. References to the third president will be limited. Despite all academic and scholarly acceptance, the board refused to change B.C. and A.D. to B.C.E. and C.E. Changes reflecting conservative views prevailed because Conservatives hold the majority on the board, a group the Huffington Post called the “Far-Right” (May 21, 2010).

 

Although President Obama will be included in American History, the Board voted to insert his middle initial “H” after rejecting an effort by Board member David Bradley to include the full middle name, “Hussein.” (Karina King, News 8 Austin, May 21, 2010) Almost all of the changes are products of the so-called “culture war” and do little in presenting balance or diversity. The suggestion that the United Nations may be a threat to U.S. sovereignty violates every notion of globalism and Global Studies, a growing field of study in universities as well as high schools.

 

Effects of the Changes in History Standards

 

Almost 5 million schoolchildren in Texas will be affected by the changes. The changes will also necessitate the revising of text books. Because Texas is one of the nation’s largest textbook purchasers (along with California), the possibility exists that other states may receive those texts as they update. According to the California Chronicle (May 22, 2010), State Senator Leland Yee has prepared a bill to be voted on next week by the legislature (SB 1451) that will require the California Board of Education to vet all new textbooks to ensure that the Texas changes are not included. The newspaper quotes Yee as stating, “The social science curriculum should be based on facts and not political ideology.”

 

Publishers, however, state that technology has made it easier to “tailor” textbooks to particular markets. Joseph Blumenfeld with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt told the Washington Post (March 18, 2010 – article by Michael Birnbaum) that “We now how the ability to deliver completely customized content.” Though comforting to other states, it doesn’t change the history curriculum in Texas.

 

In 1811, Thomas Jefferson wrote Pierre Paganel that, “The art of printing secures us against the retrogradation of reason and information.” The Texas changes may be challenged in the state legislature or through the judiciary, but for now millions of students in Texas will learn history written by a handful of conservative school board members that have scant training in or in-depth knowledge of American History.

P.S. Did you know Sam Houston was a drunk? That Davy Crockett a "Deadbeat dad?"

 

Copyright of this article owned by  Michael Streich. Any reprints required written persmission

 

 Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene must have missed all her required history courses in high school and college that discuss the holocaust and focus of the atrocities of that terrible period in European history.   I wrote the following article years ago, detecting that Holocaust studies, indeed - Genocide studies, was slowly being emphasized in the history curricula. What is perhaps more alarming is that members of Greene's Party, men like Kevin McCarthy, are content to let her jabber on, denying the holocaust and demeaning it's terrible impact. Such people literally need to go back to school.

 

Teaching the Holocaust should not be limited to a one-day lesson plan. The Holocaust is far too important to relegate to one or two days. Holocaust studies can be incorporated into History, English, Religion, and Philosophy-based classes. In many cases, this means that high school students may study this event in both World History or World Cultures classes, American History classes, and English classes. There are many ways teachers can make the Holocaust meaningful in terms of eliciting student understanding and response.

 

Resources and Ideas to Help Teach the Holocaust

 

Many organizations provide teachers with exceptional materials to teach the Holocaust. Teaching Tolerance and the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC offer free materials including downloadable materials, lesson plans, video or DVD. Additionally, teachers can utilize many of the following tips:

 

Asking Holocaust survivors to come as guest speakers and share their experiences

Assigning short books like Elie Wiesel’s Night (Bantam, 1982) or The Girl in the Red Coat (Delta, 2002) by Roma Ligocka

Using Art Spiegelman’s Maus series (Pantheon, 1986)

Showing Holocaust videos like Auschwitz: If You Cried, You Died, available on VHS or DVD free from Teaching Tolerance

Visiting Holocaust museums and exhibitions if such venues are local, such as the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC

Projecting virtual tours of Concentration Camps from on-line sites

 

Serious teachers can search the internet for organizations and university research projects that provide informational handouts and sample lesson plans.

 

Having Students do the Research

 

Given the hundreds of books on the Holocaust, teachers can assign a book report or book review that allows students to pick their own books on the Holocaust to read and develop into a response essay and class presentation. Alternately or in addition to the book project, students can be assigned to watch a movie on the Holocaust and write a reflection as well as present to the class. Teachers that decide to do this can compile a list of good movies, like Schindler’s List or Sophie’s Choice. There are dozens of good films, some documentary based like The Wannsee Conference.

 

The story of the St. Louis voyage of May 1939 has been recounted in the book, Voyage of the Damned as well as a Hollywood movie of the same name. A&E videos offer a documentary on the event called Doomed Voyage of the St. Louis. Although out of print, this video presents students with a powerful story of the plight of German Jews in 1939. Using the many materials available about this event by separating classes into cooperative groups can yield successful results. Additionally, students learn to research through a variety of media.

 

Poetry, Art, and Memoirs

 

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene must have miss all her required history courses in high school and college that discuss the holocaust and focus of the atrocities of that terrible period in European history.   I wrote the following article years ago, detecting that Holocaust studies, indeed - Genocide studies, was slowly being emphasized in the history curricula. What is perhaps more alarming is that members of Greene's Party, men like Kevin McCarthy, are content to let her jabber on, denying the holocaust and demeaning it's terrible impact. Such people literally need to go back to school.

 

The poem Babii Yar by Yevgeny Yevtushenko recalls the terrible massacre of Ukranian Jews in the Kiev area. There are many other poems as well as works of art that can be brought into a classroom discussion of the Holocaust. Students might find children’s art of the Holocaust from Theresienstadt Concentration Camp very poignant and thought provoking. An entire class period can be constructed around children’s art.

 

How Much Time Should Be Spent on the Unit?

 

To teach the Holocaust properly, it is recommended that an entire week be devoted to the endeavor. Teaching the Holocaust can be chronological in terms of the historical record, but each day can focus on specific aspects of the terrible event. The final day of the unit must be devoted to reflection and resolution. Students should be encouraged to discuss freely the lessons of the Holocaust and, most importantly, the need to keep the history alive and in the forefront. To honor the victims means that humanity must strive at all costs to never again allow genocide. 

 

Every American students should know about the the Holocaust. Every American should know about  the Armenian Holocaust. Every American should know about Germany's colonial decimation of indigenous people in Angola, perhaps a forerunner to THE Holocaust.

Until Burma style coups resulting in the killing of thousands is confronted in very strong terms by the entire world, including China, genocide will continue. And if it does, it may one day wind up in your neighborhood.

The copyright of this article is owned by Michael Streich; permission to recopy any or all of this article must be in writing.)

 

American War Hawks, Led by Henry Clay, Push for war with Britain, a totally unnecessary conflict.

Michael Streich 

In 1812 America was anything but a unity of happy states moving toward becoming a continental power. The Louisiana Purchase had opened new lands to feed the insatiable westward movement. Enticing European immigrants and depopulating America’s Northeast, the movement displaced Native cultures, some of which were still aligned with British forces in Canada. The British seized the opportunity to turn the natives against  American frontier settlements. Most of the newly acquired lands were agriculturally oriented and the settlers had no love of Britain, unlike the Northeast cities like Boston whose survival depended on European trade.

 

Many Causes of the War of 1812

 

There were many causes of the 1812 War but the greatest blame rests with a few vocal members of Congress known as “War Hawks” as well as a blundering foreign policy that left no room for negotiation. At issue were a number of grievances affecting American trade as Great Britain and Napoleonic France attempted to interdict commerce in order to weaken each other. Additionally, the British stirred up Native Americans in an attempt to harass westward moving settlers.

 

British ships illegally stopped American vessels, seizing sailors, accusing them of being British navy deserters. This policy of “impressments” was egregious, violating the sovereignty of the new nation. Even as the Napoleonic Wars were slowly ending in Europe, British upper classes supported strong action in America, viewing the United States as an upstart nation, if a “nation” at all.

 

The War Hawks of 1812

 

In America, there were several influential politicians determined to put a final end to British strong-arm tactics advocating American expansion into Canada. The very first military ventures would be aimed at “taking Canada.” These vocal war hawks represented the Southeast and the emerging new states that were being carved out of the Louisiana Purchase. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina and House Speaker Henry Clay of Kentucky led the faction calling for war with Great Britain.

 

One of the primary causes of the war were the British Orders in Council, placing severe restrictions on American shipping. Ships were seized and their cargoes confiscated. This caused insurance rates for shippers to spiral and resulted in numerous congressional measures designed to force an end to both British and French actions. By 1812, however, the Napoleonic wars were ending and the British repealed the Orders in Council.

 

The repeal came too late. The congressional war hawks pressured President Madison into a war declaration which was passed before word of the British repeal reached Washington City. Contributing toward the failure of diplomacy was the lack of any senior American envoy in London.

 

The Contemporary War Hawk Label

 

The term “war hawks” is still used today to characterize those advocating war as an appropriate response in conflict situation. The contemporary Arab Spring, for example, continues to elicit American responses in terms of military intervention. This was true in Libya and is true in the current Syrian civil war. Senators like South Carolina Lindsey Graham and Arizona Senator John McCain have been labeled war hawks by colleagues and critics.

 

Grace Wyler, writing in the My 18, 2013 Business Insider, refers to McCain [as] “a staunch foreign policy hawk.” A similar observation was made by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul during his recent filibuster concerning drone warfare. Done warfare, along with cruise missiles, may be the perfect replacement for “boots on the ground.” Hawks have always been used in hunting and ironically, a new drone under development in Germany by Northrop Grumman is dubbed “Euro Hawk.”

 

War Hawks Prey on Reality

 

War with Britain in 1812 was caused, in part, by the words and actions of war hawks like Clay and Calhoun despite lack of national spirit or preparation. The previous Jefferson administration cut defense spending, relying on the militia and few seasoned officers. Historian Page Smith comments, “It is a gross error to fight a new war with the heroes of an older one.” The war changed no boundaries, left the new nation deep in debt, and exacerbated sectional disunity. The nation’s capital, Washington City, was a smoldering ruins. Clay and Calhoun, however, emerged on a path that would make them among the most celebrated politicians in the pre-Civil War years. 

 

In 1812 war hawks used both political ends and popular opinion to achieve their results. Whether an appeal to nationalism, the so-called “romance” of a war fought for a good cause, or the post modern impersonal nature of conflicts as characterized by drones, war hawks compromise diplomacy, hardly viewing militarism as a last resort and as the last necessary part of an overall grand strategy. If 1812 is a case study, then how many other wars might have been avoided by means other than military action.

 

Resources

 

Hickey, Donald R. The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict. (1989). Chicago: University of Illinois Press).

Smith, Page. The Shaping of America: A People’s History of the Young Republic. (1980). New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.

Wyler, Grace. IT‘S War: John McCain and Lindsey Graham Just Ripped Into Rand Paul On The Senate Floor. (March 7, 2013). Business Insider. Accessed May 18, 2013.

(Copyright of this article is owned by Michael Streich. And reprints require written person; Article originally published in Decoded Past)

 

 Edward Snowden, according to the BBC, wants to "return home." This spy has forfeited his right to be called an American. He is the contemporary "man without a country."

 The Whiskey Rebellion Tests the Government's Right to Tax

Michael Streich

First Published in Decoded Past in 2012

In the summer 1794 the new American nation was tested when farmers in western Pennsylvania resorted to armed insurrection, prompting a speedy and decisive military response by President George Washington. The rebellion stemmed from an unpopular direct excise tax levied on whiskey by the Congress in 1790. The issue of “no taxation without representation” was part of a national mindset dating back to the causes of the American Revolution.

 

In 1794, as in the coming decades of an expanding nation, angry citizens revived the pre-revolutionary liberty poles, drawing inspiration from past motives associated with arbitrary and unfair taxes imposed by an authority that appeared remote and authoritarian.

 

The Whiskey Tax Rebellion in the Historical Record

 

Although Congress actually lowered the tax placed on whiskey in early 1792, farmers in western Pennsylvania were still angry, refusing to pay the tax and intimidating federal agents sent from Philadelphia to diffuse the situation and collect the tax. Whiskey production was directly linked to surplus grain and was easier to transport to markets using the river systems. The issue was not the production of whiskey as much as the federal tax placed on the commodity. George Washington himself built a whiskey distillery at Mount Vernon, producing several grades of the iconic Frontier liquid.

 

Following the intimidation of tax collectors and federal marshals, Congress submitted a Proclamation calling upon the Pennsylvania insurgents to disband and submit to federal authority. It should be noted that frontier farm families had opposed the new Constitution, fearful that the central government would usurp powers at the expense of the states.

 

The rebellion grew among the western counties and garnered sympathy in Maryland where farmers were also converting grain to whiskey. Washington secured a statement from the new Supreme Court granting him the power to deal with the rebellious farmers directly.

 

The Commander-in-Chief called upon the governors to turn out their militias and, joining the troops at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, led the troops along side Alexander Hamilton. It was the one instance angry farmers in Pennsylvania and Maryland compared the President to King George of England.

 

The Resolution Defends the Sovereignty of the Central Government

 

Washington’s army, comprised of 13,000 militia men, came from New Jersey, Virginia, and - reluctantly,  from eastern Pennsylvania under the conflicted command of Pennsylvania Governor Mifflin. Although President Washington shortly returned to Philadelphia to preside over the next session of Congress, the militia army moved into the insurgent counties and arrested several leaders that were subsequently marched to Philadelphia for trial.

 

These were the first federal “treason trials.” Far more than refusing to pay the tax, the farmers had taken up arms against the lawful agents of a Constitutional government. Several of their number had disrupted and stolen the mails. The conviction of two particularly vocal leaders, which carried a sentence of death by hanging, were eventually pardoned by President Washington.

 

The entire event involved the Congress, the President, the Supreme Court, citizens on both sides of the issue, the militia, and a host of reporters who sent human interest stories back to readers in the east. The rebellion had all of the components of a uniquely American experience and one that strengthened the central government, the power of the President, and demonstrated the power of everyday citizens.

 

The Motives of Governmental Taxation Schemes

 

The earlier taxation motive associated with the American Revolution involved the British Parliaments efforts to recoup monies spent on protecting the American colonies first from the French and later from the on-going threats of Native American attacks. Taxes like the hated Stamp Act tax dramatically altered colonial loyalties to the Crown. The tax issue and East India tea led to the colorful Boston Tea Party, a name adopted by twenty-first century conservative Republicans seeking to identify with their colonial forefathers concerned with unbridled government spending and the levying of highly unpopular taxes.

 

The great tax debate helped define a moment in history that radically changed Americans’ perception of the role of government. When President Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal initiatives failed to produce a robust and growing economy, a new recession resulted in 1937-1938. Roosevelt rejected the “balanced budget” notion being explored by Congress and instead embarked upon a plan to tax wealthier Americans at a higher rate as well as increasing taxes on corporate earnings not redistributed to shareholders.

 

Taxes are traditionally raised to pay for government debt or to permit the government to spend on services and what contemporary Americans call entitlement programs. The 1790 excise tax on whiskey was to pay for the consolidated debt incurred not only by the government under the Articles of Confederation, but the war debts incurred by individual states.

 

The Contemporary Tax Mindset in America

 

Emotions over a “tax and spend” Congress have been enough to elect popular Presidents like Ronald Reagan but in 1992 the same emotions vilified President George H.W. Bush because he had said four years earlier, “Read my lips; no new taxes,” and then allowed new taxes. “No Taxation without Representation” has become a phrase every student in American History can readily understand and identify with. They may not understand the complexities of government debt or the spending mechanisms, but they understand what the Pennsylvania farmers knew and what human beings have known since the first civilizations began: avoid the tax collector and treat him as a pariah within the community.

 

References:

 

Alfred H. Kelly and Winfred A. Harbison, The American Constitution: Its Origins & Development (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1976).

Page Smith, The Shaping of America: A People’s History of the Young Republic (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1980).

(Copyright of this article is owned by Michael Streich; reprints of any type require written permission)