a few minor revisions

[jonathankaplan]

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

Comments

HEAR, HEAR

[slowjoe]

This stuff makes my blood boil. Good job I'm not likely to bump into the guilty screenwriters and directors, because I'd let them know. REALLY let them know. NOT RESPONSIBLE

[jonathankaplan]

Shall I list a few of the arbitrarily good things that Hitler did? Or more closely related, Huey Long? Hitler did a number of good infrastructure things for Germany, but he was STILL a monster. I'd hope Nixon would have done some good things in his term(s), he was there 6 years. But a number of good things only serve as some balance (depending on perspective) to the number of bad things

[jonathankaplan]

Perhaps. Or perhaps it is just easier to see it that way now.
If you were a non-Jewish German in 1936, you would have seen it differently. Hitler (at that time) was a savior, bringing Germany back from a horrible depression, instilling pride in Germany again, organizing government, helping big industry rebuild.
Good, bad, positive, negative are all subjective words. If the German people had ejected Hitler in 1938, before his lunacy expressed itself nationally, then Hitler would be remembered as having done a number of positive things for the German people, at a time when few would have accomplished that.
There is some good in every Evil, some evil in every Good. Just depends on perspective, and sometimes, not even that.

[madwriter]

That explains a lot. I'm familiar with the story of the plot and yet there were several points (like the resistance meeting you mention above) where I thought "Huh...I didn't know that". Now I know why. :)

[zeakk]

I still don't think it matters.

Historical revisionism occurs any time you have a secondary source, or a historian writing. Heck, even with a first person source you're dealing with their own version of what transpired. We have real effects from this in the study of history, and we call it historiography.

If you can't determine where the author's bias might lie while reading or listening to an explanation of history, you're in trouble. Dates are facts. The order of events are facts. Motives are speculated. Intentions are speculated. And leaders often will intentionally lie about their motives for a policy to a group of individuals. They might even lie to themselves.

"truth" is usually quite subjective. That's why we created gods so we can make a reasonable claim as to what a truth is. "How do I know it's a truth? Well, it's the word of god."