[Peace-discuss] This stupid and racist woman teaches history at the U of I??

Sun Feb 19 20:23:16 UTC 2017

It's US political establishment mythology. A soi-disant professional 
historian should be ashamed of regaling us with such jingoistic 
nonsense. --CGE

On 2017-02-19 12:40, Karen Aram wrote:
> I just now finished reading it, text book history 101, right out of
> George Orwell’s 1984.
> 
> I doubt she is stupid or even racist, just clueless, and
> propagandized. This is an example of the robotic education that is
> being fed to American students throughout our education system and by
> the news media, memorized facts and dates, analysis always being
> “America the Great”, with “yes we make mistakes sometimes, blah,
> blah, but our intentions were good.” The overly simplistic analysis
> being, oh we just need to replace Trump with a Democrat and all will
> be right with the world.
> 
> David, I hope you and others I have cc’d will respond with a deeper
> and more comprehensive analysis, for all those who know not why, some
> of us are appalled.
> 
> If this is what students are learning, we’re doomed.
> 
>> On Feb 19, 2017, at 09:53, David Green via Peace-discuss
>> <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>> 
>> GUEST COMMENTARY: REQUIEM FOR THE AMERICAN CENTURY
>> 
>> Sun, 02/19/2017 - 7:00am | The News-Gazette [1]
>> 
>> [2] [3] [4]
>> BY KRISTIN HOGANSON
>> There are so many tremors emanating from the White House these days
>> that it can be hard to grasp the magnitude of the tectonic shifts
>> underway, especially in U.S. foreign policy. We are witnessing more
>> than a change of administration or a rightward pendulum shift, we
>> are witnessing the end of an era. Historians will debate the role of
>> the United States in the century that bears its name, but the label
>> was apt in one respect: the American Century lasted for 100 years.
>> The publishing magnate Henry R. Luce coined the phrase American
>> Century in 1941, hoping to rally the United States against fascist
>> aggression, but the dawn of the American Century can be traced back
>> to 1917, the year the United States entered World War I.
>> Then-President Woodrow Wilson anticipated Luce's missionary
>> aspirations for remaking the world along more open, cooperative and
>> democratic lines. Although his vision was marred by the conviction
>> that self-determination was the province of white men, it provided a
>> compelling counterpoint to autocratic rule. Although formulated in
>> opposition to Bolshevik promises to the working class, the Fourteen
>> Points and League of Nations Covenant provided a compelling
>> alternative to rat-filled trenches and poison gas. Economic
>> openness, collective security and self-government would lead to a
>> better world. Though the war that had brought American doughboys to
>> Europe was shot through with terror of every kind, the next one,
>> warned Wilson, would be worse.
>> Wilson lost his struggles over the League of Nations and with them,
>> the prospect of a lasting peace. But the United States, which had
>> emerged from the war as the world's greatest economic power,
>> remained a pivotal player on the world stage. Its recommitment to
>> global leadership during World War II breathed new life into the
>> Wilsonian vision. Realizing that the Second World War had indeed
>> been worse than the first and that the next to come was
>> unimaginable, U.S. leaders shaped the postwar world according to
>> Wilson's three core principles.
>> To advance the free enterprise understood as conducive to peace and
>> prosperity, the United States put its weight behind the mother of
>> all multilateral trade agreements, the General Agreement on Tariffs
>> and Trade. To advance collective security, it signed on to the
>> United Nations and a series of mutual defense pacts, NATO chief
>> among them.
>> To advance democracy, it stood fast against authoritarian communist
>> regimes, rolled back its own white supremacist policies, and
>> proclaimed its commitment to decolonization.
>> The American Century was not always the century that downtrodden
>> people desired. The Cold War burned too hot, especially on Third
>> World battlefields, such as those in Korea and Vietnam. The United
>> States worked shamelessly with right-wing dictators, from Guatemala
>> to Indonesia and Iran. The pax Americana was a pox Americana for
>> many on the opposing side and for those with an eye on the
>> environmental consequences of unbridled American consumption.
>> Yet in singing its requiem, we must acknowledge that the American
>> Century saw an astonishing reduction in poverty, especially in Asia,
>> the Pacific and the Western Hemisphere. Its guiding structures
>> prevented an all-out superpower conflagration, giving rise to the
>> concept of limited war. Many people and corporations in the United
>> States did quite well financially, as seen in the pool of
>> billionaires now available for Cabinet duty. Democracy, in its messy
>> glory, pressed forward around the world. Iron curtains, concrete
>> walls and razor wire fences came down. The American Century saw the
>> enshrinement of human rights in the laws of liberal nations. Voting
>> rights, women's rights, gay rights, labor rights, the right to not
>> be tortured: All are monuments of this era.If there was a key word
>> for the American Century, it was freedom: freedom of conscience and
>> of speech, freedom from want and from fear. Freedom of movement. The
>> free world. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States
>> quickly declared itself the winner of the Cold War — perhaps too
>> quickly from our current perspective — but the real winner at the
>> time was the democratic, capitalist coalition forged by the United
>> States. Continuing on as the leader of that coalition, the United
>> States stuck to its stated commitments to freedom, but with more
>> emphasis on free enterprise and freedom from taxes than on freedom
>> from want.
>> 
>> In setting forth his vision for U.S. foreign policy, President
>> Donald Trump hearkened back to the sentiment that Luce strove to
>> counter: America first. Trump's version of America first is not the
>> Wilsonian version that placed the United States at the forefront of
>> a collaborative world. Rejecting the core conviction that U.S.
>> fortunes have been intertwined with those of our allies, Trump has
>> offered a different take on America first: Only America first.
>> This is not the open, win-win world of collective action that Wilson
>> envisioned. It is a world of wobbly defense pacts and ruptures in
>> good neighbor relations nurtured over decades. The Trans-Pacific
>> Hail Mary pass, aimed at checking China's ascent, has gone down;
>> NAFTA is also on the block, to the chagrin of Illinois farmers who
>> have benefitted from its terms. After cozying up to Vladimir Putin
>> during the campaign, President Trump spoke of human freedom just
>> once in his inaugural address, referring to it not as an animating
>> principle, but as an old wisdom, remembered by soldiers. He promised
>> anxious Americans that they would be protected by their military,
>> police and God in this unilateralist new era, but he offered little
>> reassurance to democratic allies, much less Muslim refugees, among
>> them the military translators who have risked their lives for our
>> troops. With his pledge to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem,
>> President Trump seems determined to provoke a firestorm.
>> No wall, no matter how high, can make us safer than the world order
>> that our president is ripping up. For all its shortcomings, the
>> American Century was a far better deal than the one in the making.
>> Students of history should remember these dates: 1917-2017. They
>> will be useful in future tests.
>> _Kristin Hoganson is a professor of history at the University of
>> Illinois._
>> 
>> 
> http://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/guest-commentary/2017-02-19/guest-commentary-requiem-american-century.html
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> Links:
> ------
> [1] http://www.news-gazette.com/author/news-gazette
> [2]
> https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/guest-commentary/2017-02-19/guest-commentary-requiem-american-century.html
> [3]
> https://twitter.com/share?url=http://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/guest-commentary/2017-02-19/guest-commentary-requiem-american-century.html&text=Guest%20Commentary:%20Requiem%20for%20the%20American%20Century
> [4] http://www.news-gazette.com/printmail/1512249