Vinny’s Mexican Adventure

[yankees60]

Split off from Putin invades Ukraine II / DS

From this passage in the book ..... how do we criticize Russia given our own history?


The United States of America conquered half of Mexico. There isn’t any way around that fact. The US regions most affected by “illegal” immigration — California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas — were once part of the Republic of Mexico. They would have remained so if not for the Mexican-American War (1846–48). Those are the facts, but they hardly tell the story. Few Americans know much about this war, rarely question US motives in the conflict, and certainly never consider that much of America’s land — from sea to shining sea — was conquered.

Many readers will dispute this interpretation. Conquest is the natural order of the world, the inevitable outgrowth of clashing civilizations, they will insist. Perhaps. But if true, where does the conquest end, and how can the United States proudly celebrate its defense of Europe against the invasions by Germany and the Soviet Union? This line of militaristic reasoning — one held by many senior conservative policy makers even today — rests on the slipperiest of slopes. Certainly nations, like individuals, must adhere to a certain moral code, a social contract of behavior.



In the mid-nineteenth century American politicians and soldiers manufactured a war with Mexico, sold it to the public, and then proceeded to conquer their southern neighbor. They were motivated by dreams of cheap farmland, California ports, and the expansion of the cotton economy along with its peculiar partner, the institution of slavery. Our forebears succeeded, and they won an empire. In the process they lost something far more valuable in the moral realm.



Words matter, and we must watch our use of terms and language. Mexico hadn’t invaded Texas; Texas was Mexico. Polk manufactured a war to expand slavery westward and increase pro-slavery political power in the Senate. Was, then, America an empire in 1848? Is it today? And why does the very term empire make us so uncomfortable?

So what, then, are readers to make of this mostly forgotten war? Perhaps this much: it was as unnecessary as it was unjust. Nearly all Democrats supported it, and most Whigs simply acquiesced. Others, however, knew the war to be wrong and said so at the time. Through an ethical lens, the real heroes of the Mexican-American War weren’t Generals Taylor and Scott but rather artists such as Henry David Thoreau; a former president, John Quincy Adams; and Abraham Lincoln, then an obscure young Illinois politician. There are many kinds of courage, and the physical sort shouldn’t necessarily predominate. In this view, the moral view, protest is patriotic.

Let me challenge you to think on this: Our democracy was undoubtedly achieved through undemocratic means — through conquest and colonization. Mexicans were just some of the victims, and, today, in the American Southwest, tens of millions of US citizens reside, in point of fact, upon occupied territory.13

[Kbg]

Well Mark said I was the true believer once...so let's go there

Russia: Easy to criticize. Humans and international social norms have evolved (for the better). Russia has given rise to Lenin, Stalin and Putin...all dictators, all expansive in seeking territory and two absolutely and directly responsible for the murder of 10s of millions...in the 20th and 21st centuries. Find me any US equivalent...in the 20th and 21st centuries. Answer: You can't.

Did we conquer Mexico and take a fair amount of their territory away? No doubt, guilty as charged. Question...how did Mexico originally get that territory? Answer: The same way we got a lot of ours...killing native Americans with advanced weaponry but mostly disease. What we can truthfully say is the ancestors/descendent countries of two imperial powers took on each other for territory and the Spanish version lost to the English version. Meanwhile, the Spanish version conquered an indigenous native culture that is famous for its brutality to the people IT conquered to include the ritualistic slicing and dicing of live human prisoners. Exactly, which side had the moral high ground if that is our standard? Was the Spanish conquista in modern day Mexico a just war? Finally, given a completely fair and open election today...would any of these states chose to rejoin with Mexico? Don't know that answer, but I bet we could make a pretty good guess at the results.

Should nations adhere to a moral code and social contracts of behavior? We (I) think that they should and that they do is a sign of progressing as a species. However, what were the moral codes and contracts of behavior in the 1600, 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s? Were they different amongst peoples. Finally, "morality" is often a completely cultural artifact. What may be moral for people A could be deeply immoral or amoral to people B. Rhetorical question: Were ancient Romans moral or immoral, how about the Greeks before them? In their own eyes they thought they were moral. In our eyes, not so much. See conquista example above. A very strong case could be made the Spanish had the moral high ground vs. the Aztecs...if you are a westerner. If you were Aztec...you were practicing the free exercise of your religion. Going American...were US Calvary operations against dominant plains Indians tribes who regularly attacked and enslaved weaker tribes the moral high ground or not?

On American slavery...conveniently and repeatedly ignored is the fact that the Civil war was fought over the issue of slavery and 100,000s of white male northerners gave their lives to end it...and a bunch of them were highly likely racist and fought for the Union...but they also knew the Union split because of the slavery issue. Was northern aggression justified and moral or not? And, go figure that a white racist northerner would fight to free African American slaves! Even though he was personally racist, was his cause not just?

If you want to be shocked at America and Americans at their worst...you should read up on American military operations in the Philippines after the Spanish American War. Not pretty and morally repulsive even for imperial times as a qualifier.

The above was fun to write and strictly in the spirit of good debate...my main point, and it is a peeve of mine, is when writers wrap themselves in the mores, social norms and morality of today to criticize the past and more so when no credit is given for what would be considered a good moral outcome perpetrated by the same people...or to recognize when something bad that happened ended up over the long haul being good. It's only half the story and a false equivalency.

My personal take on our world today. Overall, the US is a force for good in today's world. Supplying Ukraine is completely justified and American foreign policy is too militaristic.

(With the author...he has a serious logical writing problem. Brings up the US and Mexico as "bad" and then says we shouldn't criticize Russia???)

[I Shrugged]

Coach Mike Dikta said, "Living in the past is for losers and cowards." (Hey, it's football season.)

I have some neanderthal DNA. Maybe I can start a movement for reparations.

[yankees60]

Well Mark said I was the true believer once...so let's go there

Russia: Easy to criticize. Humans and international social norms have evolved (for the better). Russia has given rise to Lenin, Stalin and Putin...all dictators, all expansive in seeking territory and two absolutely and directly responsible for the murder of 10s of millions...in the 20th and 21st centuries. Find me any US equivalent...in the 20th and 21st centuries. Answer: You can't.

Did we conquer Mexico and take a fair amount of their territory away? No doubt, guilty as charged. Question...how did Mexico originally get that territory? Answer: The same way we got a lot of ours...killing native Americans with advanced weaponry but mostly disease. What we can truthfully say is the ancestors/descendent countries of two imperial powers took on each other for territory and the Spanish version lost to the English version. Meanwhile, the Spanish version conquered an indigenous native culture that is famous for its brutality to the people IT conquered to include the ritualistic slicing and dicing of live human prisoners. Exactly, which side had the moral high ground if that is our standard? Was the Spanish conquista in modern day Mexico a just war? Finally, given a completely fair and open election today...would any of these states chose to rejoin with Mexico? Don't know that answer, but I bet we could make a pretty good guess at the results.

Should nations adhere to a moral code and social contracts of behavior? We (I) think that they should and that they do is a sign of progressing as a species. However, what were the moral codes and contracts of behavior in the 1600, 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s? Were they different amongst peoples. Finally, "morality" is often a completely cultural artifact. What may be moral for people A could be deeply immoral or amoral to people B. Rhetorical question: Were ancient Romans moral or immoral, how about the Greeks before them? In their own eyes they thought they were moral. In our eyes, not so much. See conquista example above. A very strong case could be made the Spanish had the moral high ground vs. the Aztecs...if you are a westerner. If you were Aztec...you were practicing the free exercise of your religion. Going American...were US Calvary operations against dominant plains Indians tribes who regularly attacked and enslaved weaker tribes the moral high ground or not?

On American slavery...conveniently and repeatedly ignored is the fact that the Civil war was fought over the issue of slavery and 100,000s of white male northerners gave their lives to end it...and a bunch of them were highly likely racist and fought for the Union...but they also knew the Union split because of the slavery issue. Was northern aggression justified and moral or not? And, go figure that a white racist northerner would fight to free African American slaves! Even though he was personally racist, was his cause not just?

If you want to be shocked at America and Americans at their worst...you should read up on American military operations in the Philippines after the Spanish American War. Not pretty and morally repulsive even for imperial times as a qualifier.

The above was fun to write and strictly in the spirit of good debate...my main point, and it is a peeve of mine, is when writers wrap themselves in the mores, social norms and morality of today to criticize the past and more so when no credit is given for what would be considered a good moral outcome perpetrated by the same people...or to recognize when something bad that happened ended up over the long haul being good. It's only half the story and a false equivalency.

My personal take on our world today. Overall, the US is a force for good in today's world. Supplying Ukraine is completely justified and American foreign policy is too militaristic.

(With the author...he has a serious logical writing problem. Brings up the US and Mexico as "bad" and then says we shouldn't criticize Russia???)

Just to address three items ....

1) It was not the author but me in my introductory comment that brought up not criticizing Russia.

2) I'm not understanding your term "north aggression". It was the south who fired the first shot.

Those "white racist northerners" were not fighting to "free African American slaves" but to preserve the union. Most of them were forced to do so through being drafted.

https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h249.html

"The initial war fever soon dissipated in both the North and South, and each side was compelled to resort to conscription. The South instituted a draft in 1862, requiring three years of service for those selected between the ages of 18 and 35; later, as the war prospects dimmed, the pool was enlarged by taking in ages 17 to 50. A large number of exemptions were allowed and there were provisions for substitutions. The threat of a draft was used in Missouri and Iowa to speed up the rate of volunteer enlistment. The Militia Act of 1862 gave the President authority to draft 300,000 militiamen for up to nine months. It was to be a state run affair, with each county to be involved in the selection. However, the threat of conscription was for the time being enough to keep enlistments at an adequate level. The Draft Act of 1863 was the first instance of compulsory service in the federal military services. All male citizens, as well as aliens who had declared their intention of becoming citizens, between 20 and 45 were at risk of being drafted. No married man could be drafted until all the unmarried had been taken. Two methods of evading the draft were available. A man could hire a substitute who would serve in his place, or he could simply pay $300 to get out of the obligation. The lower classes resented this system; resistance and anger were especially fierce in the Northern cities, where large groups of immigrants lived. In July 1863, draft riots broke out in New York City and lasted four days. Some of the anger had been fueled by the Democratic Party, whose leaders doubted the wisdom of the war and hated Lincoln. News of heavy losses at Gettysburg ignited smoldering racism and led to a number of very unfortunate incidents. Freed blacks were unfairly targeted as the cause of the war and several were beaten to death or lynched by the mobs; a black orphanage and church were set on fire. The rage subsided only when the Army of the Potomac, supplemented by cadets from West Point, was deployed in New York. Despite the resistance, the Civil War conscription policy established that it was within the powers of the federal government to compel enlistment without using the states to administer or approve."

We also go back to Lincoln's famous quote regarding the North's reason for fighting the war:

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union.

— President Abraham Lincoln in a letter to the abolitionist Horace Greeley (August 22, 1862)"

3) Regarding brutality ...

"Eventually, Santa Anna, always a better politician than a military strategist, was surprised and defeated by Sam Houston along the banks of the San Jacinto River. The charging Americans yelled “Remember the Alamo!” and sought their revenge. Few prisoners were taken in the melee; perhaps hundreds were executed on the spot. The numbers speak for themselves: 630 dead Mexicans at the cost of 2 Americans. It is instructive that the Mexican policy of no quarter at the Alamo is regularly derided, yet few north of the Rio Grande remember this later massacre and probable war crime."


Now I am reading the concluding paragraph in the book regarding the Phillipines:

"The final major campaign occurred on southern Luzon in 1902. General James Franklin Bell removed natives from villages and placed them in concentration camps; crops were burned and livestock was killed; a random Filipino was selected for execution each time an American soldier was killed in combat (a certain war crime even by the standards of the day); and an American decree made it “a crime for any Filipino to advocate independence.” In three months fifty thousand locals were killed. The war was effectively over, though short spurts of violence and rebellion would occur occasionally for another decade. Untold hundreds of thousands of Filipinos were dead. The water buffalo, the key to rural life in the region, had been made nearly extinct, its numbers diminished by some 90 percent. Indeed, as historian Stephen Kinzer disturbingly noted, “Far more Filipinos were killed or died as a result of mistreatment [over four years] than in three and a half centuries of Spanish rule.” This, it appears, was the price of American “liberty” — and the islands would not receive genuine independence until after World War II!"

[boglerdude]

kbg now do israel/Palestine

[glennds]

Should nations adhere to a moral code and social contracts of behavior? We (I) think that they should and that they do is a sign of progressing as a species. However, what were the moral codes and contracts of behavior in the 1600, 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s?

Kbg,
Perhaps another angle to consider is once it became clear that colonization was a path to economic and military power, nations were incentivize, dare I say obligated, to jump on the bandwagon for fear of being left behind and maybe eventually colonized themselves. If someone like the author in question was looking through today's lens and calling colonists bad actors, then the list of bad actors is pretty long. In fact, the list of those the significant countries that didn't jump on board may be smaller than the list of those that did. It's easy to point at the US, Spain, Britain, Portugal. How about France, Belgium, Netherlands, Turkey, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Imperial Japan, China, the list goes on and on.

What was the price to any one of these countries taking a moral high ground and abstaining from the gold rush?

Once I was in Paris in a taxi, and the taxi driver pointed at monument after monument and asked me if I knew how France was able to pay to build all these stunning monuments. His answer - from the money we stole from the countries we colonized.

One one moral positive note - Phillip II of Spain decreed that the pacification of the Philippines be bloodless, to avoid a repetition of what had gone on in the Americas. Forward thinking for the 16th century.

[I Shrugged]

kbg now do israel/Palestine

[joypog]

I saw this thread title and thought hungover in TJ....a day late and missing a passport.

[dualstow]

[Kbg]

kbg now do israel/Palestine

That's a tough one for sure.

On colonialism...lots of context behind that stuff that was prevalent at the time...Christianity/white man's burden and Darwinian theories. While Darwin may be pretty good scientifically, it is plausible to say his theories led to a lot of human death in the world.

[joypog]

kbg now do israel/Palestine

That's a tough one for sure.

On colonialism...lots of context behind that stuff that was prevalent at the time...Christianity/white man's burden and Darwinian theories. While Darwin may be pretty good scientifically, it is plausible to say his theories led to a lot of human death in the world.

Or maybe it was coincidental that his theories came up during the time of industrialization and with the increased productivity, and any new/old theory would have worked to justify the powerful's desires for mass mayhem.

[Kbg]

No, Darwinian survival of the fittest was explicitly used as a justification for a lot of awful stuff by many European countries.

I assume you are familiar with “Aryans.”

Sure it was a Justification…the two were coincidental in time for the colonial heydays of the 1800s.

The earlier stuff 1500-1700s was a more a mix of naked European power as a result of superior technology combined with government and church (which were integral to each other at the time and almost inseparable)

[yankees60]

No, Darwinian survival of the fittest was explicitly used as a justification for a lot of awful stuff by many European countries.

I assume you are familiar with “Aryans.”

Sure it was a Justification…the two were coincidental in time for the colonial heydays of the 1800s.

The earlier stuff 1500-1700s was a more a mix of naked European power as a result of superior technology combined with government and church (which were integral to each other at the time and almost inseparable)

Again from the book .... some of the justification for 'Aryans' came from modeling after our own country's behavior of about a century ago;

"While Populism pitted the “people” against the state, Progressives believed in the utility of using the state, through new theories of social science, to intervene in the economy and reform society. Indeed, the paternalistic impulses of some Progressives were such that they saw the masses — urban or rural — as a threat to democracy, a populace itself in need of regulation. Therein lies part of the dark side of the Progressive movement. Sure, Progressives made great, if gradualist, progress on improving working conditions, government regulation, and the right of (white) women to vote. This ought to be rightfully celebrated. Still, many Progressives, both academics and policy makers, believed in the social Darwinist notion of human beings’ “survival of the fittest.” In that vein a powerful wing of the Progressives backed eugenics programs of forced sterilization laws. Those deemed physically or mentally unfit were to be sterilized for the good of the American “whole.” Beginning in 1907, two-thirds of US states would eventually pass forced sterilization laws. Indeed, even the Supreme Court ruled, in Buck v. Bell (1927), that compulsory sterilization was fully legal and constitutional. In a disturbing irony, Adolf Hitler and other Nazis would later cite America as a positive example and model of their early racial purity programs."

[dualstow]

Sounds like Ken Burns’ documentary that was on last night.

[yankees60]

Sounds like Ken Burns’ documentary that was on last night.

I was just telling a friend yesterday I'd never watch another Ken Burns documentary again. His baseball one from 30 years ago was so filled with inaccuracies that I could never trust any of his later documentaries. I'd rather read accurate writings.

[glennds]

Sounds like Ken Burns’ documentary that was on last night.

I was just telling a friend yesterday I'd never watch another Ken Burns documentary again. His baseball one from 30 years ago was so filled with inaccuracies that I could never trust any of his later documentaries. I'd rather read accurate writings.

Without going through an extensive litany, what were some of the larger things that were inaccurate?

I plan to watch his Holocaust documentary. The previews have already made it clear that there is a message about the US not doing enough, and that the reasons had to do with xenophobia, replacement theory and maybe an American anti-semitism variant.
The question to me is whether the documentary is historically accurate in the context of the time, or is is a form of woke shaming through the lens of today's politics. I really hope it's not the latter.

I thought the Burns Vietnam War documentary was very good. It's the only VN war doc I've seen that presented interviews with NVA officers and NV citizens, politicians.

[dualstow]

Agree on the Vietnam doco.
You’ve got the Holocaust doco’s list down, too. I really didn’t see it as woke shaming, something I detest. At least not in Part One from last night.

It *was* eerie to be reminded that the Nazis picked up a lot of their worst ideas from Americans and Brits. Eugenics, Henry Ford’s ‘The International Jew’ (a serialized version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion), etc.

[yankees60]

Sounds like Ken Burns’ documentary that was on last night.

I was just telling a friend yesterday I'd never watch another Ken Burns documentary again. His baseball one from 30 years ago was so filled with inaccuracies that I could never trust any of his later documentaries. I'd rather read accurate writings.

Without going through an extensive litany, what were some of the larger things that were inaccurate?

I plan to watch his Holocaust documentary. The previews have already made it clear that there is a message about the US not doing enough, and that the reasons had to do with xenophobia, replacement theory and maybe an American anti-semitism variant.
The question to me is whether the documentary is historically accurate in the context of the time, or is is a form of woke shaming through the lens of today's politics. I really hope it's not the latter.

I thought the Burns Vietnam War documentary was very good. It's the only VN war doc I've seen that presented interviews with NVA officers and NV citizens, politicians.

A quick search finds many web sites like this one;

https://thegruelingtruth.com/baseball/f ... cumentary/


Ken Burns taxpayer-supported PBS documentaries are shown in public schools across the U.S., presented to students as unvarnished facts. But are they? Every Ken Burn’s documentary I have ever seen has some historical mistakes, and my favorite documentary he did was about baseball. While I still love watching it, there are many things that I know are just not true. Today, we will look at the historical inaccuracies of Burns critically acclaimed Baseball mini-series.




Yaz and the 1967 World Series
The truth is Burns is a great filmmaker and a great storyteller, but he is not a historian. In all his work (not just baseball), he takes multiple liberties with music, images, and narration to make good stories while sacrificing historical accuracy. Similar to what Hollywood does with Movies such as Rudy and Remember the Titans, the problem here is that you are supposed to be telling the unvarnished truth in a documentary. Burns is a filmmaker instead of a documentarian.

I do know that footage of Yaz batting in the 1967 World Series does exist! I mean, you can only laugh when they show Yaz batting in the 1967 World Series, and then it switches to the pitcher, and it’s the Orioles’ Dave McNally (who didn’t pitch in the ’67 Series; he pitched in the ’69 Series (a series Yaz didn’t play in)). People should watch his work knowing that it blurs fact and fiction (but they won’t).

[yankees60]

Sounds like Ken Burns’ documentary that was on last night.

I was just telling a friend yesterday I'd never watch another Ken Burns documentary again. His baseball one from 30 years ago was so filled with inaccuracies that I could never trust any of his later documentaries. I'd rather read accurate writings.

Without going through an extensive litany, what were some of the larger things that were inaccurate?

I plan to watch his Holocaust documentary. The previews have already made it clear that there is a message about the US not doing enough, and that the reasons had to do with xenophobia, replacement theory and maybe an American anti-semitism variant.
The question to me is whether the documentary is historically accurate in the context of the time, or is is a form of woke shaming through the lens of today's politics. I really hope it's not the latter.

I thought the Burns Vietnam War documentary was very good. It's the only VN war doc I've seen that presented interviews with NVA officers and NV citizens, politicians.

He's not exactly breaking any new ground here. Maybe for people who only get their information through viewing and not through reading.

From the book on this topic:

"Further proof of American hesitancy could be found in its perfidious response to the Jewish refugee crisis of the 1930s and ’40s. When Germany occupied Austria in 1938 without a shot fired, three thousand Jews per day applied for visas to the United States in the capital city of Vienna. Unfortunately, due to the harsh restrictions on Jews and East Europeans entering the United States under the 1924 National Origins Act, the US consulates in Germany and Austria could legally process only 850 visas per month. Eventually the consulates had a backlog of some 110,000 visa applications. By 1938, of course, it was no secret that the Nazis were persecuting Jews across the Third Reich, stripping them of citizenship and civil rights and even subjecting them to violence. Still, America proved to be little help to hundreds of thousands trying to escape. In a bit of Kafkaesque political tragedy, under German law Jews who left the country could take only a very small amount of money with them. The immigration-restrictive United States forbade granting visas to people “likely to become a public charge” — meaning poor people. Thus, with unemployment raging in Depression-era America, there was little hope this ban would be lifted or that a sizable number of Jews could thread the legal loophole and seek refuge in the Land of the Free.

It’s not that the Germans wouldn’t let Jews go at that point in time. In fact, Nazi minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels announced that “if there is any country that believes it has not enough Jews, I shall gladly turn over to it all our Jews.” A Nazi newspaper commented, “We are saying openly that we do not want the Jews while the democracies keep on claiming that they are willing to receive them — and then leave the guests out in the cold.” And indeed the United States, and the other democracies, largely did. A Fortune magazine survey in 1938 indicated that only 5 percent of American respondents were willing to raise immigration quotas for Jews. Even Roosevelt, who would later push the nation toward war with Germany, parroted the popular American line. Asked by a reporter, just five days after the worst Nazi pogrom against Jews to date, whether he would “recommend relaxation of our immigrations restriction,” he answered simply: “That is not in our contemplation. We have the quota system.” It was not his or the nation’s proudest moment."

[yankees60]

https://www.recorder.com/my-turn-Matz-R ... y-48001402

Opinion > Columns
My Turn: Two gentiles, two Jews and Roosevelt — A response to Ken Burns’ ‘The U.S. and the Holocaust’


Now fast-forward to September 2022; we have another gentile, a well-known film maker, who is presenting to America his twisted, distorted and unhistorical version of the Holocaust. Contrary to Burns’ presentation, the history of America’s response to the Holocaust is not an issue of responding to a refugee crisis or to anti-Semitism; rather, it is and should be about the response of the FDR Administration to the knowledge and facts of the massacre of European Jews, which was clearly known to them from the middle of 1942. The American response to the Holocaust is complex and multi-layered.

There were two prominent Jewish figures, both mentioned by Burns, who were involved in this American response: a Reform rabbi, Stephen Wise; and an ardent Zionist and freedom-fighter, a Jew from British Palestine named Hillel Kook, better known in America as Peter Bergson. Both these men were complex individuals.

During the Holocaust, Rabbi Wise, shadowing FDR, worked hard to convince America’s Jews that the solution to the ongoing massacre of European Jewry was the future Jewish State after the defeat of Nazi Germany. In contrast, Peter Bergson worked to convince Americans and the Roosevelt administration that America needed to respond to the Holocaust and to take immediate, direct action to save Jews first and declare Israeli independence afterward. I know this from personal experience, as I worked for Peter Bergson for 10 years.

Are America’s historians, Holocaust museums and current American Jewish leaders embarrassed over the American response to the Holocaust, causing them such confusion and frustration that they are unable to deal with this subject fully and honestly? I have to wonder. Such seems to be the case with the upcoming PBS presentation of the Ken Burns Potemkin documentary.

Eliyho Matz, of Great Barrington, worked as Peter Bergson’s assistant for 10 years. He is the author of “Auschwitz on the Potomac 1943: Hillel Kook, the Attempt to Save European Jewry and the Birth of the Israeli Nation” (2022) and “Who is an Israeli?” (2012).

[yankees60]

Sounds like Ken Burns’ documentary that was on last night.

I was just telling a friend yesterday I'd never watch another Ken Burns documentary again. His baseball one from 30 years ago was so filled with inaccuracies that I could never trust any of his later documentaries. I'd rather read accurate writings.

Without going through an extensive litany, what were some of the larger things that were inaccurate?

I plan to watch his Holocaust documentary. The previews have already made it clear that there is a message about the US not doing enough, and that the reasons had to do with xenophobia, replacement theory and maybe an American anti-semitism variant.
The question to me is whether the documentary is historically accurate in the context of the time, or is is a form of woke shaming through the lens of today's politics. I really hope it's not the latter.

I thought the Burns Vietnam War documentary was very good. It's the only VN war doc I've seen that presented interviews with NVA officers and NV citizens, politicians.

Never heard of the documentary until reading about you describing it. From what you remember of it ... how does it fit with the following:

"A careful study of the informational sources and the works of the most respected historians of the conflict demonstrates some important truths: that the United States lost the Vietnam War both politically and militarily; that the United States may have been on the “wrong” side and acted far more like a European colonial power than most Americans are apt to admit; that the United States engaged in wanton destruction of a rather poor society in its fruitless quest for “victory” over the communists; that global communism itself was no monolith and that although Hanoi gladly accepted support from Russia and China, this remained very much a Vietnamese war; that the press, protesters, and skeptics had not sold out their country but, rather, were on the right side of history. The Vietnam War, in sum, should never have been fought — the distant country was never a vital national security threat to the United States; American intervention was, ultimately, a national crime and tragedy."

[glennds]

Never heard of the documentary until reading about you describing it. From what you remember of it ... how does it fit with the following:

"A careful study of the informational sources and the works of the most respected historians of the conflict demonstrates some important truths: that the United States lost the Vietnam War both politically and militarily; that the United States may have been on the “wrong” side and acted far more like a European colonial power than most Americans are apt to admit; that the United States engaged in wanton destruction of a rather poor society in its fruitless quest for “victory” over the communists; that global communism itself was no monolith and that although Hanoi gladly accepted support from Russia and China, this remained very much a Vietnamese war; that the press, protesters, and skeptics had not sold out their country but, rather, were on the right side of history. The Vietnam War, in sum, should never have been fought — the distant country was never a vital national security threat to the United States; American intervention was, ultimately, a national crime and tragedy."

Vinny,
I think the message of the Burns Vietnam War documentary is pretty consistent with your quote. In keeping with the Ken Burns style, a lot of his documentary was built on interviews and commentary from people who were direct or indirect participants in the war. As I mentioned, getting Vietnamese perspective, both North and South was very interesting and added a whole new dimension rarely ever touched upon in Vietnam War movies or reporting.
There is an interesting arc about one guy who starts out as a soldier and ends up a protester, very moving.

I recommend you watch it. Not only for the reasons mentioned, but I also recall you are a music fan, and arguably the greatest period of rock music happened during the Vietnam years. Burns uses it to full advantage, not just for effect, but also to help drive the story. There's one scene I will never forget where he uses Jimi Hendrix' Are You Experienced as a backdrop to the impossibly difficult conditions the infantry faced.
The tragedy and heartbreak of it all is driven home effectively.

[I Shrugged]

Not a huge fan of Ken Burns but I'll second the recommendation for The Vietnam War.

[yankees60]

On American slavery...conveniently and repeatedly ignored is the fact that the Civil war was fought over the issue of slavery and 100,000s of white male northerners gave their lives to end it...and a bunch of them were highly likely racist and fought for the Union...but they also knew the Union split because of the slavery issue. Was northern aggression justified and moral or not? And, go figure that a white racist northerner would fight to free African American slaves! Even though he was personally racist, was his cause not just?

From the book that Xan's brought to our attention today .... the fight was NOT to free the current slaves. They generally cared nothing regarding the plight of those currently enslaved. As well described below they wanted restricted slavery out of their own self-interests. I've read a lot about this issue but nothing as comprehensive as what is stated below.




"Only later, after four years of brutal war, did Lincoln and the North embrace abolition. In 1861, although the Republicans were an antislavery party, antislavery did not imply all that it would today. The issue then was not abolition by the federal government, which not even Republicans believed was permitted under the Constitution, but whether to tolerate the extension of slavery beyond the fifteen states where it existed. Republicans opposed extension, and so, probably, did most northerners. However, few northerners evinced much feeling for the plight of the Black slave. It’s important to remember that prior to the Civil War, Blacks accounted for scarcely more than 1 percent of the northern population. Few northern whites had much to do with Blacks, slave or free, and even fewer supported abolition. They were opposed to slavery’s extension mainly because they preferred their own societies to the slave societies in the Deep South. Whigs, and later Republicans, advocated a system of “free labor,” which connoted not just the absence of slavery, but a positive culture of small farms, cottage industries, and independent craftsmen. Free laborites contrasted the economic system in Massachusetts or Pennsylvania with that in Georgia or South Carolina, and judged the former vastly superior from the vantage point of whites. Education and transportation were more available, land more widely owned, the public square more vibrant, the society more fluid.

Yankee apostles advocated free labor not, principally, on behalf of the Negro, but out of concern for the welfare of future white settlers. They wanted to extend the culture of free labor that, as they saw it, had given rise to New England villages dotted with churches and schoolhouses because white pioneers would fare better in such places. They envisioned the territories as a safety valve for urban crowding—and few settlers would go west if it meant competing with slave labor.

The proof that the well-being of the Negro was not on the minds of most northerners is that the so-called free states went out of their way to proscribe Blacks from voting and other expressions of citizenship, such as jury privileges. The northwest states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, as well as Oregon, passed laws or constitutional provisions to bar Black immigration. In Indiana, Black suffrage was put to a state convention and defeated 122 to 1. Only the New England states, where few Black people actually lived, permitted Blacks an unrestricted franchise.

David Wilmot, a congressman from Pennsylvania, unabashedly framed the antiextension movement in terms of white self-interest. “The negro race already occupy enough of this fair continent,” he told a rally in 1848. “Let us keep what remains for ourselves, and our children—for the emigrant that seeks our shores.” Lyman Trumbull, an Illinois Democrat and later Republican, endorsed this racially exclusive vision of “free” labor, saying, “I want to have nothing to do, either with the free negro or the slave negro. We wish to settle the Territories with free white men.” Northern politicians abhorred slavery, but they expressed little sympathy for the slave.

What northerners truly abhorred was the South’s economic and social backwardness. The South was less urban, less educated, woefully underindustrialized. Although the slave states accounted for just under 40 percent of the population, they accounted for less than 6 percent of the country’s pig iron and leather—even of its cotton and woolen textiles. Total capital invested in manufacturing—per capita—was more than three times higher north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Transportation was far more extensive. Ohio, although a bit smaller than Alabama, had twelve times as many railroad miles. Free laborites also frowned on the great wealth disparities (among whites), the listless quality of southern farms, and the insularity of its villages steeped, as Representative Stevens put it, in “mournful decay.”"

[Kbg]

Completely inaccurate, horribly so for a very dedicated set of abolitionists who were in a minority but a politically powerful one.

If you read the war was not primarily over slavery at its core, you are reading widely discredited historical theories generated by southern historians starting in the 1880s running into the 1940s. There are huge numbers of accounts written by wealthy European travelers concerning discussions they had with southerners and northerners on the issue of slavey.

The historicity on this is pretty clear.

That’s not to say the large majority cared, they did not.

Finally, the historical record, and particularly regarding Lincoln, makes it very clear anti-slavery opinion hardened considerably over the period of the war. So what may have been true in 1861 was not by 1865. Many writers who take this stance seem to snap the chalk line in 1861. I’ve always been befuddled by this line. It’s destroyed by one rhetorical question: Why did the southern states secede?

Wars do that.