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Ron Jeremy posted:Wasn't the Reagan campaign negotiating with the iranians to keep the hostages until after the election or is that tinfoil? Considering the hostages weren't released until Regan gave his inauguration speech I'd say so.
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Mar 21, 2014 23:44
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computer parts posted:Are there any countries that aren't blatantly positive regarding their country when teaching elementary history? 'Murica, since, as the poster above you noted, we've got poo poo for a national system and educational quality varies wildly. That said, when I took the APUSH test (about as close as you're going to get to a national authorized history) it was reasonably up front about most of these complexities. A little internal (foreign policy gently caress ups got a lot less press than 'dear god the Jim Crow South was poo poo wasn't it?') but not, you know, wave the flag beat the drum rahrahrah.
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Mar 22, 2014 00:02
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sullat posted:Modern Germany, maybe? Canada? As a french/american living in Canada it's pretty amazing what a whitewashed view of the place americans (and goons of al stripes) have. Yeah, the government is firmly socially liberal which is nice, but otherwise all the same issues exist. Racism is rampant. Natives are treated like crap. Socialism is a dirty word. Russia is Our Eternal Enemy. We pretend to be environmentalists while pumping the atmosphere full of CO2 (and exploiting the poo poo out of foreigners) so we can have bananas and avocados and strawberries year-round. History as taught is all about how unbelievably free and equal canadians are (unlike America eh!!!!), and how they burnt the white house and kicked the Kaiser's rear end. Awareness of native issues is even lower than in the US consciousness. It really, really is America Junior. I'm also familiar with France and Sweden and much the same, they're not nearly the paradises that americans/the average leftist goon describes. I love all four places and they all have their ups and downs. They're also all dripping in the blood of exploited workers and foreigners and full of flag-waving racists who, if they were american, would think Obama is a stalinist. Pretending the US is uniquely terrible is silly. The US has a fuckload of problems but it's also great in its own ways.
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Mar 22, 2014 00:44
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computer parts posted:Are there any countries that aren't blatantly positive regarding their country when teaching elementary history? China's an interesting reverse example because they emphasize very strongly their "hundred years of humiliation" in order to instill nationalism and legitimize Party rule. That's even the title of the unit.
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Mar 22, 2014 02:44
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Peanut President posted:Considering the hostages weren't released until Regan gave his inauguration speech I'd say so. To be fair, it is well within the realm of possibility that they released the hostages at that point as a final "gently caress You" to Carter. They really did not like him.
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Mar 22, 2014 03:48
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vintagepurple posted:full of flag-waving racists who, if they were american, would think Obama is a stalinist. If we're going to have those folks anyway, can we at least have uhc?
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Mar 22, 2014 05:57
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Re: passing mention of the Jefferson-Hemings controversy. Do these, uh, true-blooded patriots trying to save good ol TJ's name not realize that the idea of Jefferson's brother knocking up Ms. Hemings (or a mix of other suitors) time after time is perhaps more bizarre than Thomas being the father? Like, your brother and possibly other men are dallying with this woman who works in your home and accompanies you abroad, and you remain clueless?
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Mar 22, 2014 17:31
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Jefferson was a pretty clueless guy in general. His weird goony personality and his obsessive-compulsive behavior make some modern scholars fall over themselves declaring he had Asperger's or something on the autism spectrum.
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Mar 22, 2014 18:35
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Arglebargle III posted:China's an interesting reverse example because they emphasize very strongly their "hundred years of humiliation" in order to instill nationalism and legitimize Party rule. That's even the title of the unit. That's really no different than the American focus on the Revolutionary War and the many tyrannies of Mad King George, and I'm sure many nations' play up their national grievances to instill patriotic fervor. What's important is that the virtues of China and her people are never in question. Everything is the fault of a decadent ruling class.
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Mar 22, 2014 21:14
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Yeah, the hundred years of humiliation isn't an opposite to this kind of history. Perhaps if it was taught as the Chinese being backward, unwilling to adapt to new technologies and eventually being dominated by more successful international actors then it would be but somehow I doubt that's how most Chinese are taught about the period. From what I've heard it seems to be more of a focus on the incompetence/corruption of Imperial bureaucracy and the evil machinations of foreigners forcing unequal treaties on the Chinese, taking their land and their silver while forcing them all to smoke Opium. Those cases where officials resisted are treated as heroic acts of defiance showcasing national virtues. What's really great about it, as with American history, is that when you view similar situations in modern times where the roles are reversed (such as the confrontation over the Spratly islands or similar) the Chinese don't see the problem with using superior economic or military might to get their way. It's simply that they're entitled to that territory and they can use their superior might to make things right.
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Mar 23, 2014 14:12
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computer parts posted:Are there any countries that aren't blatantly positive regarding their country when teaching elementary history?
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Mar 23, 2014 17:47
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MrNemo posted:Yeah, the hundred years of humiliation isn't an opposite to this kind of history. Perhaps if it was taught as the Chinese being backward, unwilling to adapt to new technologies and eventually being dominated by more successful international actors then it would be but somehow I doubt that's how most Chinese are taught about the period. From what I've heard it seems to be more of a focus on the incompetence/corruption of Imperial bureaucracy and the evil machinations of foreigners forcing unequal treaties on the Chinese, taking their land and their silver while forcing them all to smoke Opium. Those cases where officials resisted are treated as heroic acts of defiance showcasing national virtues. What's the difference here, exactly? If you're searching for a 'deeper' cultural critique you'll find that as well. Mao and the Communists and, to be honest, many of the Nationalists turned on Confucianism and 'feudalism' hard. It definitely wasn't about official incompetence to Mao, breaking Chinese culture and reshaping it was a huge part of his project until he died. And Mao never had any particular qualms about power and morality. "Political power grows from the barrel of a gun" is a lesson the CCP learned in 1927, when the KMD turned on them. The communists had been focusing on cultural and propaganda work, probably most useful long term, but the purge definitely left its mark. Even* post-communist takeover China wasn't free from critique. Long live the eternal revolution! *at least from a strictly Mao perspective, this one hasn't stuck around as much.
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Mar 23, 2014 18:19
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the JJ posted:What's the difference here, exactly? The difference is that their leadership had failed, not their people. (And their leadership were dirty foreigners from 1650-1912 anyway)
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Mar 23, 2014 18:48
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Bro Dad posted:Jefferson was a pretty clueless guy in general. His weird goony personality and his obsessive-compulsive behavior make some modern scholars fall over themselves declaring he had Asperger's or something on the autism spectrum. I remember reading a thing about Monticello where some of the design documents for fireplace and doorway decorations have these impossible tolerances, like 1.0025733 inches. It reminded me instantly of Ulillillia.
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Mar 23, 2014 20:58
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computer parts posted:The difference is that their leadership had failed, not their people. No he's got a point, everything to do with "old" Chinese culture was deeply reviled for about 15 years in the Communist period, and that wasn't just a communist thing. China had been in an intellectual crisis about its cultural heritage since the 1850s at least. Ironically today the response is to raise up everything ancient because the mainland's connection to the past was so thoroughly severed that modern China is reconstructing its past in a fantastical exercise. It's ironic because the Chinese take such pride in their history, and are also making that history into whatever they want because the communists did such a good job of destroying it.
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Mar 24, 2014 00:06
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Arglebargle III posted:No he's got a point, everything to do with "old" Chinese culture was deeply reviled for about 15 years in the Communist period, and that wasn't just a communist thing. China had been in an intellectual crisis about its cultural heritage since the 1850s at least. Ironically today the response is to raise up everything ancient because the mainland's connection to the past was so thoroughly severed that modern China is reconstructing its past in a fantastical exercise. It's ironic because the Chinese take such pride in their history, and are also making that history into whatever they want because the communists did such a good job of destroying it. My Chinese history professor from last year says that the Communists today are trying to bring back Confucianism mainly for its "respect your elders, and those in power" tenets (and that that's a sign of intellectual bankruptcy on their part).
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Mar 24, 2014 00:15
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Arglebargle III posted:No he's got a point, everything to do with "old" Chinese culture was deeply reviled for about 15 years in the Communist period, and that wasn't just a communist thing. China had been in an intellectual crisis about its cultural heritage since the 1850s at least. Ironically today the response is to raise up everything ancient because the mainland's connection to the past was so thoroughly severed that modern China is reconstructing its past in a fantastical exercise. It's ironic because the Chinese take such pride in their history, and are also making that history into whatever they want because the communists did such a good job of destroying it. Computer parts is also correct. Current Chinese history places the blame squarely on the ruling class and continually reminds you that the ruling class was comprised of Manchurians as opposed to Han.
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Mar 24, 2014 00:32
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ToxicSlurpee posted:I should add that I didn't know Jefferson (or Washington, for that matter) owned slaves until I was...22, I think. Talking to younger people I know there are definitely places that have the "everything America does is perfect, America always wins, the end" version of things. It depends on the area but where I went to high school one of the social studies teachers, first day of class, stood up and said "my son is a green beret. He's fighting so you can be here safely. You will never criticize America in my class." You must have had a really lovely education then, my public education was nothing like that. I mean, various wars and stuff were definitely presented from the American side, but not exclusively, and there was no whitewashing or shying away from stuff like that Washington and Jefferson owned slaves (and the Sally Hemming accusations against the latter) and the Trail of Tears and similar things. And that was just in middle school.
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Mar 24, 2014 06:28
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We didn't gave much in the way of "History" education in elementary school when I was a kid. Sure we learned about some of the real basic stuff (Columbus, Pilgrims, Revolution, THE MOON gently caress YEAH) but when I hit middle school it got more detailed. I had a teacher in 7th grade who gave a writing assignment of 2 pages in the voice of a newly captured slave. I wrote a page on getting captured while I watched my family bleed to death, having my thumbs crushed for my insolence, having my face beaten to a pulp for attempts to organize a revolt, and later describing getting a severe respiratory illness, with the second page as a crewman griping about having to throw overboard a gnarled-thumbs, half-dead coughing-blood slave who used to be quite uppity before he was stricken with TB. It was well-received, got an A and encouragement to be a writer.
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Mar 24, 2014 17:43
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FAUXTON posted:We didn't gave much in the way of "History" education in elementary school when I was a kid. Sure we learned about some of the real basic stuff (Columbus, Pilgrims, Revolution, THE MOON gently caress YEAH) but when I hit middle school it got more detailed. I had a teacher in 7th grade who gave a writing assignment of 2 pages in the voice of a newly captured slave. I gave you an A for verisimilitude. Actually... what was the scurvy situation back in those bad times?
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Mar 25, 2014 08:15
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I'm not sure what it's like for other countries, but in the US they teach history basics and then reinforce those concepts as the student progresses. So for elementary and middle school you're going to learn names, dates, and important grand themes. All of the historical nuances are saved for high school. Looking through recent textbooks, the focus is primarily on lovely treatment of minority groups rather than governments behaving badly with other governments.
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Mar 25, 2014 14:58
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Frostwerks posted:I gave you an A for verisimilitude. Actually... what was the scurvy situation back in those bad times? Scurvy was a problem clear up until we could reliably preserve the needed nutrients, I imagine.
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Mar 25, 2014 18:07
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Frostwerks posted:I gave you an A for verisimilitude. Actually... what was the scurvy situation back in those bad times? Pretty bad. Nobody had really figured out what scurvy was, although venturing types did know some things that would treat it, mainly fresh fruit and meat. Lind definitively proved that fresh fruits would prevent scurvy in 1753, but because he picked lime juice - in which the ascorbic acid is destroyed by oxidization - the Royal Navy figured he was full of poo poo, and nothing was achieved. A fun little statistic from the 7 Years War (1754-1763  ):quote:During the Seven Years' War, the Royal Navy reported that it conscripted 184,899 sailors, of whom 133,708 died of disease or were "missing", and scurvy was the principal disease. If you add in a general disregard for the life of slaves on trans-atlantic voyages, it's probable that their disease mortality rates would be particularly grim relative to the seamen transporting them. In progressively smaller areas of seafaring life, scurvy persisted until refrigeration allowed the preservation of fresh fruits over long distances. Ascorbic acid itself was only isolated in 1927. PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Mar 25, 2014 |
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Mar 25, 2014 18:07
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Something I'm curious about is how the US has managed to hold it together for more than 200 years while other nations in this hemisphere get taken over by dictators or other major problems that all but bring them completely down. Some how, we haven't had a military figure do something like prop himself up as president-for-life in a coup and have the state's military be at his every beck and call, yet that kind of thing is rampant all over South America. What did we do that they didn't?
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Apr 2, 2014 10:42
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The history of the cure for scurvy is fascinating, because it was lost and rediscovered. The British Navy were serving lemon juice to sailors to (successfully) prevent scurvy in the early 19th Century, but Scott's expedition to the South Pole in the early 20th was devastated by scurvy because they had completely the wrong idea about how to handle it.Star Man posted:Something I'm curious about is how the US has managed to hold it together for more than 200 years while other nations in this hemisphere get taken over by dictators or other major problems that all but bring them completely down. Some how, we haven't had a military figure do something like prop himself up as president-for-life in a coup and have the state's military be at his every beck and call, yet that kind of thing is rampant all over South America. What did we do that they didn't? Well it's only 200+ years if you ignore the Civil War. And plenty of those "other major problems" are the direct or indirect result of American foreign policy and interference.
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Apr 2, 2014 10:53
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Star Man posted:Something I'm curious about is how the US has managed to hold it together for more than 200 years while other nations in this hemisphere get taken over by dictators or other major problems that all but bring them completely down. Some how, we haven't had a military figure do something like prop himself up as president-for-life in a coup and have the state's military be at his every beck and call, yet that kind of thing is rampant all over South America. What did we do that they didn't? The consequences of the Spanish conquest and the castas system produced much more instability than the American race/class system, which was later exploited by the United States to maintain imperial hegemony over the Latin America in the 20th century.
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Apr 2, 2014 11:26
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Star Man posted:Something I'm curious about is how the US has managed to hold it together for more than 200 years while other nations in this hemisphere get taken over by dictators or other major problems that all but bring them completely down. Some how, we haven't had a military figure do something like prop himself up as president-for-life in a coup and have the state's military be at his every beck and call, yet that kind of thing is rampant all over South America. What did we do that they didn't?
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Apr 2, 2014 12:14
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Star Man posted:Something I'm curious about is how the US has managed to hold it together for more than 200 years while other nations in this hemisphere get taken over by dictators or other major problems that all but bring them completely down. Some how, we haven't had a military figure do something like prop himself up as president-for-life in a coup and have the state's military be at his every beck and call, yet that kind of thing is rampant all over South America. What did we do that they didn't? A lot of those dictators were installed by the U.S. Juuuuuuust saying.
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Apr 2, 2014 14:24
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Star Man posted:Something I'm curious about is how the US has managed to hold it together for more than 200 years while other nations in this hemisphere get taken over by dictators or other major problems that all but bring them completely down. Some how, we haven't had a military figure do something like prop himself up as president-for-life in a coup and have the state's military be at his every beck and call, yet that kind of thing is rampant all over South America. What did we do that they didn't? Displacement, really. Also certain aspects of our history basically worked in favor of constitutional adherence (in a drunkenly broad sense, but hear me out) due to poo poo like racism and it's idiot cousin jingoism. There's nothing more  than deifying the framers (Have you seen the congressional cupola mural) and embracing the constitution as what places "Us" above "Them." Sure, half the time it's just lip service and a foil for doing gratuitously unconstitutional poo poo, but the mentality of constitution as scripture took firmly. It also helped that the handful of generals-cum-presidents were half decent for the most part.
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Apr 2, 2014 14:36
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The US did well because they are far away from other major powers, the only attempted secession event got smacked down and big countries tend to be rich and prosperous (even one that's 80% arctic wasteland like Canada although certainly more agriculture helps).
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Apr 2, 2014 15:04
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Star Man posted:Something I'm curious about is how the US has managed to hold it together for more than 200 years while other nations in this hemisphere get taken over by dictators or other major problems that all but bring them completely down. Some how, we haven't had a military figure do something like prop himself up as president-for-life in a coup and have the state's military be at his every beck and call, yet that kind of thing is rampant all over South America. What did we do that they didn't? American exceptionalism, duh. There were probably a variety of factors, but we got a head start because of our shared background with England, who had a more democratic or representative government than Spain's. Other former English colonies have also faired better than their Spanish peers. And while we did contribute to instability in Central and South America, that wasn't in a vacuum. The Monroe Doctrine meant it was us fiddling with these countries rather than Europe. But someone would have messed with them regardless. In that era, if you weren't a colonial power you were in for a bad time.
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Apr 2, 2014 15:09
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ToxicSlurpee posted:A lot of those dictators were installed by the U.S.
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Apr 2, 2014 15:22
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Star Man posted:Something I'm curious about is how the US has managed to hold it together for more than 200 years while other nations in this hemisphere get taken over by dictators or other major problems that all but bring them completely down. Some how, we haven't had a military figure do something like prop himself up as president-for-life in a coup and have the state's military be at his every beck and call, yet that kind of thing is rampant all over South America. What did we do that they didn't? Smedley Butler posted:I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
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Apr 2, 2014 17:24
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Krispy Kareem posted:American exceptionalism, duh. The weird thing is that America did, in fact, do well because of exceptionalism but at the time the word hadn't been invented yet. Part of the reason America did so well was the fact that iron and coal were so drat plentiful and were the basis of the industrial revolution while we didn't have landed nobility or guilds loving up the system. All told the conditions were exactly right for America to become a superpower. Where it gets hosed up is that people assume that it's never going to end or that God set it up or that America is unique in that happening. Every time some group or another got really powerful it was partly by accident. The conditions were just right and the right conditions vary over time. Where they gently caress up is deciding "we must freeze the world so we can stay in power." You can't do that and as soon as you do it's over. America has hit its decline. Ofaloaf posted:There weren't any CIA death squads running across Latin America when Bolivar proclaimed himself dictator, though. There were coups and revolutions in the 19th century too, well before we really got into the imperialist spirit of things. A lot of that was when America was small, isolationist, and not all that powerful. That was the empires of the time collapsing before America got an imperialist bug up its rear end. Like that Smedley Butler quote and some history says America has been meddling for a lot longer than people seem to think. In the 19th century it was mostly America getting into tussles with Mexico. Anything south of that was irrelevant or, for a long while, was either part of the Spanish empire or unstable and unsafe to gently caress with.
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Apr 2, 2014 17:36
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The 19th century also had this Napoleon guy that started wars with practically everyone. When you think about it, a shocking amount of American success can be attributed to simply not being a theater of war. France fighting all the way out to Russia, then Russia spending 50 years taking/retaking the steppe countries, Italy, Greece, etc and their respective wars of independence, Russia fighting Persia, England entering the century-long endgame with Irish Republicans, France invading Spain, it goes on and on. Sure, it wasn't like these were massive continental wars for the most part, but you've got refugees coming and going all over. Refugees can certainly work, but they are undoubtedly a social load to some degree (if 10000 people with nothing but their luggage showed up in your city poo poo would change) which may have effects on the domestic economy. FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Apr 2, 2014 |
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Apr 2, 2014 18:02
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ToxicSlurpee posted:The weird thing is that America did, in fact, do well because of exceptionalism but at the time the word hadn't been invented yet. Part of the reason America did so well was the fact that iron and coal were so drat plentiful and were the basis of the industrial revolution while we didn't have landed nobility or guilds loving up the system. All told the conditions were exactly right for America to become a superpower. There were plenty of filibusters with private armies running off into Central/South America in the antebellum period and a huge desire of the South was to conquer parts of the Caribbean and Central America and add them as slave states. Direct US intervention (outside of Mexico) was way less than during the 20th century, sure, but Latin America was not at all irrelevant to American politicians prior to the US Civil War - I recommend you check out Slavery, Race, and Conquest in the Tropics by Robert May. To a large extent, the Republican platform of restricting the expansion of slavery was much less about the existing US territories (where slavery would mostly be economically/geographically unsound) but rather in preventing the 'slave power' from achieving its goal of further expansion into Cuba, Mexcio, Central America, etc. Rogue0071 fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Apr 2, 2014 |
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Apr 2, 2014 18:34
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FAUXTON posted:When you think about it, a shocking amount of American success can be attributed to simply not being a theater of war.
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Apr 2, 2014 18:38
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Where it gets hosed up is that people assume that it's never going to end or that God set it up or that America is unique in that happening. Every time some group or another got really powerful it was partly by accident. The conditions were just right and the right conditions vary over time. Where they gently caress up is deciding "we must freeze the world so we can stay in power." You can't do that and as soon as you do it's over. America has hit its decline. Like how Portugal, which now has the lowest literacy rate in all of Europe, was once one of the world's most powerful nations. I think every decently sized nation in Europe has been on top at some point in the last two thousand years. R. Mute posted:Hmm, yes, no wars in America. No wars at all. None that I can think of. No refugees either. Nothing! Did we have refugees during the Civil War? There were displaced people, but I don't recall them going anywhere. The great Black migration didn't occur until later. If you're referring to immigrants then that was an influx we could regulate unlike countries that actually bordered war zones. Krispy Wafer fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Apr 2, 2014 |
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Apr 2, 2014 19:31
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Krispy Kareem posted:Did we have refugees during the Civil War? There were displaced people, but I don't recall them going anywhere. The great Black migration didn't occur until later. If you're referring to immigrants then that was an influx we could regulate unlike countries that actually bordered war zones. I think he's referring to the genocide of the Native Americans and other first nation people's.
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Apr 2, 2014 19:44
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Krispy Kareem posted:
Plenty of people moved to the West/PNW because it was clear that the South was going to be unpleasant for a while.
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Apr 2, 2014 21:53
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