history is written by who?
 

THE USES AND ABUSES OF HISTORY
Fri Oct 24, 7:59 PM ET
By Richard Reeves

WASHINGTON -- "America is proud of its part in the great story of the Filipino people," said President Bush to a joint session of the Congress of the Philippines last week. "Together our soldiers liberated the Philippines from colonial rule."

Unfortunately, we then killed more than 200,000 Filipinos. Almost all of the dead were civilians, killed in the two years after we liberated them from the Spanish in 1898. One of our generals there, a cranky Civil War veteran named Jacob Smith, told his men: "I wish you to kill and burn ... I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States."

"How young?" asked Maj. Waller Tazewell Waller (cq) of the U.S. Marines. "Ten years and up," said Gen. Smith.

None of this was secret at the time. American soldiers -- we sent 70,000 there after the Spanish colonial authority surrendered when Commodore George Dewey's fleet sailed into Manila Harbor -- wrote of the details in letters to hometown newspapers. Here are samples quoted in a new book, "Flyboys," by James Bradley:

"We bombarded a place called Malabon, and then went in and killed every native we met, men, women and children" ... "This shooting human beings is a 'hot game' and beats rabbit hunting all to pieces" ... "Picking off niggers in the water is more fun than a turkey shoot" ... "I am probably growing hard-hearted, for I am in my glory when I can sight my gun on some dark skin and pull the trigger. Tell all my inquiring friends that I am doing everything I can for Old Glory and for America I love so well."

Back in Washington, President Theodore Roosevelt was calling that "the most glorious war in our nation's history." The Filipino victims he dismissed as "a syndicate of Chinese half-breeds."

George W. Bush knows all this. At Yale, he got a B in History 35, a study of that era, taught by John Morton Blum, a biographer of Theodore Roosevelt. And if he has forgotten, he could look up some of it in Bradley's book. This president's father, Lt. George H.W. Bush, U.S. Navy, is a hero of "Flyboys" (and of a CNN documentary with the same title), which includes a frightening section on American anti-Asian attitudes and Japanese anti-American and anti-Christian attitudes that fed slaughter, massacre and even cannibalism in World War II.

We are, more often than not, relatively decent people in war and occupation. The Spanish rulers of the 7,000 islands of the Philippines were worse than the Americans, and there was a significant anti-war movement at home between 1899 and 1902. On July Fourth of that year, Roosevelt declared victory, after 4,234 Americans were killed in guerrilla attacks during the first three years of occupation. Mark Twain proposed that the stripes of Old Glory should be black and red. Gen. Smith was court-martialed and Maj. Waller tried (and acquitted) on murder charges. During Smith's court-martial, one of his aides said, "If people know what a thieving, treacherous, worthless bunch of scoundrels these Filipinos are, they would think differently."

That quote, in Stanley Karnow's 1989 book, "In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines," illustrates one of the more important historical lessons of occupation: Not only do the occupied inevitably come to hate the occupiers, the occupiers come to hate the occupied. Last Wednesday, a New York Times story by John Tierney -- the headline began "Baffled Occupiers ..." -- quoted a GI watching over a Baghdad market as saying: "If you really want to know, I'm sick of being in a country where lying is the national pastime."

A second important lesson is this: The occupied always prevail in the end, because they are there forever and the occupier one day will go home. It may take 50 years, which is how long we stayed in the Philippines, but that is not much time in history.

History can be revised or downplayed for a time -- in Manila last week, everyone talked about new public schools and the 550 teachers sent from San Francisco in 1901 rather than the 70,000 occupiers -- but reality emerges at embarrassing times because history is forever. As another American president, Harry S. Truman, once said: "The only thing new in this world is the history you don't know."

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where are wankers speech writers and advisers when he needs them? you would think by now he would know better than to say anything that wasent writtin for him by someone else and triple checked.

not to dis yer thread dood, but i felt mr. reeves said a bit more so i posted it.

The answer is A, historians.

Re: history is written by who?
 

First , who writes history? The winners do.



His second important lesson.....well the Brits have occupied Ireland for 800 years and there is still no sign of the evil doers leaving.

I think a few left in 1922. Also, Gerry Adams is likely going to be deputy first minister in the next NI executive. Give it time.

the correct answer goes to Sinner.

Who?

the stonecutters

we doooooo we doooooo:beer:

The answer and the horrible truth: LV15 :er: :eek: :sus:

Greedy, Tambourine, dis the president all you like, I won't stop you. But that wasn't the point of this essay. Mr. Reeves wasn't attacking Bush, he was using him as an example. He wasn't bashing American patriotism, he didn't decry the evils of occupation, and he hasn't accused anybody of revising the history books. This essay is a warning, not an argument. "Not only do the occupied inevitably come to hate the occupiers, the occupiers come to hate the occupied." So far this is the only logical reason I have heard for bringing our soldiers home. The soldiers are there to keep the peace while Iraq rebuilds, and Richard Reeves obviously understands that attitude. "We are, more often than not, relatively decent people in war and occupation." He isn't comparing our soldiers to Com. George Dewey's marauders, but he is suggesting that if we don' take care then history may repeat itself.

the thing about history that has always been a problem with me is.. it is always focused around wars...

his·to·ry ( P ) Pronunciation Key (hst-r)
n. pl. his·to·ries
A narrative of events; a story.

A chronological record of events, as of the life or development of a people or institution, often including an explanation of or commentary on those events: a history of the Vikings.

A formal written account of related natural phenomena: a history of volcanoes.

A record of a patient's medical background.

An established record or pattern of behavior: an inmate with a history of substance abuse.

The branch of knowledge that records and analyzes past events: “History has a long-range perspective” (Elizabeth Gurley Flynn).

The events forming the subject matter of a historical account.

The aggregate of past events or human affairs: basic tools used throughout history.

An interesting past: a house with history.

Something that belongs to the past: Their troubles are history now.

Slang. One that is no longer worth consideration: Why should we worry about him? He's history!

A drama based on historical events: the histories of Shakespeare.

oh puh-lease, quit the tacky attempt at being some kind of neo-intellectual, you can find timelines centered around the development of cheese or the history of tree bark production, typing "timeline of wars" into google will produce the type of timline you show, a timeline showing history centered around wars, wow! who'd a thunk it?!?

excuse me..but world history wich i presume was being talked about..is centered about wars...its what is taught in schools....general history...
fucking pair of fools..:uu:

Food Timeline

did you know that Spam was first introduced in 1937, 2 years before the start of world war 2?

my point was if you go looking for "timeline of war" you'll find just that, google search : timeline of US history , now sure wars and battles are mentioned but it's not "focused" on war.
ok...you and who else?

comeon this is kindergarten stuff ...
 

ok you were mainly talking about US history then..

that food timeline is pretty interesting inky

Re: comeon this is kindergarten stuff ...
 

your uncanny ability to state the obvious is breathtaking.

It's all right to be ignorant, but it's stupid to make a career out of it.

whats ignorant ..you better point that out..
you pair of contrary fairies are making your selves look dumber than what i think you are....

world history is focused on wars...
i dont like it..fucking war SUCKS...
live with it...

When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.
- Socrates

Quote:

world history is focused on wars... i dont like it..fucking war SUCKS... live with it...

Live with war? Like I have a choice. Maybe world history is focused on war because it is a huge part of World History. Look up the discovery of America for example, there will be some mention of war against native americans....etc etc...

Whats next, you hate astronomy because they focus to much time teaching about stars?

every dozen or so threads i give you dickheads what you want....
pointless repetitve forum drama..

and haha at slander....

i think i got slandered as soon as i voiced a opinion as a trying to be a neo-intellectual did i not...

war sucks ..its my opinion..live with it..is all i ment

i know you try to sound like yours is the only opinion that counts or has any real meaning or sense...but its BS repetitive dogma...
and every so often you can be sure i will voice my opinion..
that you can also live with...

A history book that doens't detail or even mention war would be a very thin book. It's important to study war, especially if you want to prevent it.

At any rate, it's not history that revolves around war, it's historians that do. You'll find very few knowledgeable historians who were not soldiers at one time. As any soldier would, these guys wish to put an end to all war, so they try to educate others on the subject. Most civilians don't feel that same sense of civic duty, hence they don't write history books.

I'm not convinced by that statement.

I ACTUALLY DONT HATE HISTORY...NOT THAT I EVER SAID I DID..

now theres a point..
all these war memorials and stuff..sort of have the same premise always remember...those that were lost so it doesnt happen again..ok
thats al very well and good...but WTF does it do ...nothing..it just keeps ingraining it into the minds and the psyches, generation after generation...its just
another one of these things that one day humans will look back on as some bizarre peice of history...like we look back on the gladitors in ancient rome..

Think about it Naz. There's two kinds or historians, those that were there to experience the things they write about, and those that rewrite the things they've read in other history books. Take Troy for instance, it's history was recounted by soldiers who fought in that war, which in turn was recounted by a Greek poet, which in turn was rewritten by a Roman historian, which in turn was kept by an Arab scholar, which in turn was translated by a Roman Catholic priest, and so on and so on... It has been transformed over the centuries and turned into this great epic with magic and heroism, so that it's now called a myth. But when the city was finally found, there lay in the ruins evidence of the events that were written of in the story we have today.

Did those people who rewrote that story over and over really know what they were talking about? They weren't there to witness those events. But they think that because they've read two or three books offering different points of view that they have the big picture and they can interpret history correctly. :N: Events either took place or they didn't, there's no room for interpretation. But war historians who have fought in their own wars have shared similar experiences with the people they write about, so they have a unique point of view. They may not have been there to see it for themselves, but they understand the thoughts and feelings of the people who were there.

It's true, Multi, that some historians focus on the battles and the tactics that were used in a war, but others focus on the events leading up to the war, and the events following. Those are the books worth reading. They don't engrain their readers with warlike ideas, they teach about the failures and triumphs of civilization. The battles themselves may become bizzare pieces of history, but the events in between must not be forgotten along with them.