Comments | jonathankaplan: a few minor revisions

jonathankaplan

a few minor revisions

Jan 06, 2010 14:12

I have promised to show why I think Nixon was the worst modern president, but I am not going to do it here. In part, because few of you care, in part because the project is too long to keep promising and I want to do it slowly, and in part because there is a better place to do it. So, go there if you care.....But now, all this research into Nixon's ( Read more... )

nixon, valkyrie, truth, history, revisionism, politics

Comments 34

herooftheage January 6 2010, 20:05:16 UTC

So for what it's worth, your "go there if you care" link is really a "go there if you care enough to get a facebook account" link for some of us.

Now, as I also think Nixon was either the worst or second worst of the modern presidents (GWB is at least a consideration for me), I suspect I'm going to fail the latter test. :)

jonathankaplan January 6 2010, 22:05:34 UTC

After I get more information there, I'll post an executive summary here, if there is interest.
Thanks!

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jonathankaplan January 6 2010, 22:09:57 UTC

Foreign Policy was almost all Kissinger. Some people would (or maybe, will be) aghast at some of the foreign policy decisions made behind close doors by those two. Maybe not, it was a simpler time.

I don't remember Nixon as being "benignly neglectful" when it came to civil rights. I look forward to researching some more specifics on that part of his history.

Most cerebral ever? Ever is a few centuries in this case, and Nixon has some stiff competition with the likes of Jefferson and Monroe...
Thanks!

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jonathankaplan January 7 2010, 17:14:01 UTC

The Civil Rights act that LBJ signed did that ( ... )

Thread 25

kenshi January 6 2010, 21:23:55 UTC

The Nazis have become such a core part of the American ascendency myth that I don't think it really makes much sense to talk about any American account of Nazism as being especially "historical." In that sense, any "revision" is simply a re-framing of the mythology to suit modern cultural/political purposes. There's nothing "historical" about it.

jonathankaplan January 6 2010, 22:11:41 UTC

I don't disagree with any of this, not really, but I would say that, this revision has the added detriment of (imo) playing with political fire. I may be a crackpot, but I see the risks of fascism in "our" future. This movie goes one little step towards helping that.
Thanks!

kenshi January 6 2010, 22:19:31 UTC

I agree that the USA is racing toward the abyss of fascism and find the prospect so appalling that I'm almost paralyzed by the horror of it (and I say this as an actual, honest-to-ghod reactionary who thinks democracy is pretty close to the worst thing EVAR). On the other hand, our account of fascism is already so burdened by major revisionism, dating all the way back to when the Nazis were still very much alive and kicking, that I find minor little tweaks such as Gestapo-flaunting movie dissidents set in the 1940s to be more funny than outrageous.

adbjupe January 6 2010, 21:32:50 UTC

I voted bad for other reasons but in the end it comes down to killing the truth ( ... )

jonathankaplan January 6 2010, 22:15:10 UTC

This is all correct to me, maybe I am just a nervous sort.

It is easy to talk of the "resistance" now, but when I look at the numbers, the size of the resistance is many times dwarfed by the size of population who did nothing and worse. The need to tell the resistance story is there, but to overdramatize it in such a way as to make it seem like it was that important AT THE TIME is wrong, to me.
Gloss over historical ugliness and run extra risk of repeating it, I'd say.
I'd respond a bit more, but I tire easily.
Thanks!

adbjupe January 6 2010, 22:49:00 UTC

I don't get it. On one hand you say not to gloss over historical ugliness and on the other hand you say the July/20 plot wasn't important at the time.

The fact that the Volksgerichtshof, solely responsible for political offenses handed out 5000 death sentences over the 3 years of its existence should show that there was resistance and that it was brutally supressed. Add 5000 arrests in the aftermath and this becomes non trivial to me.

As for my objectivity in the issue: I am German. But I did have more access to information about the era.

jonathankaplan January 7 2010, 17:49:28 UTC

I say the July 20 plot wasn't important, because, one, it didn't work, and two, it (and its aftermath) is statistically insignificant to my point ( ... )

Thread 6

polyanarch January 6 2010, 23:04:59 UTC

ALL history has been revised at one point or another. History isn't so much an exact science but about opinions. Opinions change and the way we interpret history changes with them.

It doesn't mean it doesn't stink. But that is just the way things are. Some revisionists stink more than others too.

jonathankaplan January 7 2010, 17:29:33 UTC

That is very true. The Bible, as a historical document, went through revisionist type writing, long after the fact. But much longer after that, he would be hard to know that.
History is written by the winners, and more winners keep coming along...

polyanarch January 7 2010, 17:45:40 UTC

History is written by the winners, and more winners keep coming along...
Exactly. And there are all sorts of intermediate steps in between. You can tell which ones are the winners by who doesn't fall to the wayside and disappear as time goes on. Before that happens, it's still game on.

jonathankaplan January 7 2010, 17:54:15 UTC

This anti-Fascist, free rights Libertarian isn't going to fall by the wayside without a fight. I'm going to fight (further) revisionism, in writing, as long as I live. Which kind of brings us full circle to my original Facebook entry. Hopefully, your friendship on my friends list won't cause you difficultly, a decade or three from now. I greatly appreciate your input, thanks!

Thread 5