History
History – is it important to us today? And is it relevant to our lives?
History can be defined as the achievements and failures of mankind within their environment and within the parameters of human behavior. The truth of physical events, the motivations and results of those actions within the consequence of said actions, recorded faithfully without pride or prejudice and without emotional reaction.
I own history books recorded from 1901 to present day. I have borrowed some from 1889 and 1802 (courtesy of Allen Kitchen and Freddy Grey over a long winter in the mountains). You would be surprised at the different stories they tell. So let’s establish this precept right here and now. The further you go back into history, the less accurate history becomes.
Allow me to illustrate it this way:
As events occur, faithful historians record it without prejudice – such as William Shirer’s recording of World War II. Books such as “NAZI Spies in America,” “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” “The Patton Papers,” the diaries of Eisenhower, Bradley, Gavin, Rommel, etc.. The historians who authored those books chronicled the truth with pictures, forensics, and eyewitnesses. They each had their perceptions of the results, but the truth was that they were horrified beyond words.
A short 65 years later, many institutions now claim that it didn’t happen that way – despite the photos, exhumed bodies, factual evidence, eyewitnesses… despite the TRUTH.
So how the hell does that happen when we should be dedicated to the truth in the United States?
How do these institutions of higher learning adopt a lie? Think about that for a minute. Why would people voluntarily abandon reason? Power perhaps? Or a personal agenda?
Maybe it’s a fact that we do not wish to acknowledge. Perhaps it is a human desire to dominate. When we do, we will wipe the slates clean from all wrong doing. It will be a lie – one we tell ourselves to justify our actions.
But that is not history.
Perhaps the reason these things are done is to invalidate the inarguable facts of the past to relive those days and hope for a different outcome. That outcome will never happen. Why? Because human nature dictates history. It is the single constant throughout the volumes of world and cultural history. The same basic drives – instinctual drives like those of the beaver he must either build or die. These are the things of history These are the things we must face and overcome.
Has a civilization ever overcome human nature? No. History continues to repeat itself without regard to the past because we have never overcome our nature. That said, revisionist history condemns us to the same wars over and over. Wars are manifested in different places and for different reasons according to our perceptions, but it is the same motive that creates war – domination. For example, NAZI Germany blitzed Europe and within a year they dominated a continent. The history repeats itself over and over, but why?
Because history is distorted by political agenda. For example, Islam says the Holocaust never happened. Most Americans know better because our own ancestors were there. Why do we as a people start to believe that it “never happened?” Why would we believe the lies over the testimony of our own fathers and grandfathers? Because people are going to believe what is comfortable to believe. Thus, we will eventually relive what we already know has gone wrong.
When will we learn?
God Bless You,
Sandy Daniel, USN