Historians Find 'Myriad Errors' In VA History Textbooks

Historians Find 'Myriad Errors' In VA History Textbooks

tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.c om

A number of additional errors have been found in other textbooks being used in some Virginia classrooms, since the state ordered a review of the books, the Washington Post reports.

Among the textbooks' errors are claims that the Confederacy included 12 states and the U.S. entered World War I in 1916. Five professional scholars reviewed the books, with three of them finding "disturbing" results. State officials are scheduled to meet January 10 to review the results.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Heh-heh, I am sure I am going to get raked over the coals by my numerous detractors here, but this is a subject that I have ALWAYS had problems with, due to the very nature of WHO writes these accounts.

This here is a shining example of the twisting and outright FALSEHOODS which are possible, and in my own opinion, PROBABLE, when we are dealing with modernized HIS-story.

We can see that even in our most recent era, folks in position of power try to manipulate stories and purposes behind wars and world events. So much so, that often times their spin on things become accepted as truth, if said often enough, and with the right delivery mediums (which is most often a collusional media system).

So my feeling behind this story is this is just one rare case where actual misinformation has been caught and exposed, but I would lean towards this being a VERY widespread phenomenon in our 'public schooling' and 'text book' modalities.

History is written by the 'victors'.

tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.c om
(visit the link for the full news article)

...makes me wonder what other errors are out there, unidentified and uncorrected.
government schools make great indocrination centers, so cirricula determinants are hugely influential

reply to post by DimensionalDetective



Very well said.

I am from Virginia and have been watching this story for several months now. This is [IMO] complete and utter BS propaganda.

I find this NEWS story so infuriating; first let me say Slavery is wrong. I am not defending slavery. But people in this country have worked very hard to shape the "facts" surrounding the civil war. And unfortunately, if you buck up against "historical" accounts of this era... you quickly get painted an extremest. [you gotta love social conditioning!]

Just as Fox News and NPR spout their mind manipulating propaganda... so did the media centers and "historians" of the Civil War era. Why?

Answer: By bringing the "social issue" of slavery to the forefront, the engineers of the War of Northern Aggression could take the spotlight off the fact that the North was taxing the South to ruin and devistation.

So why the need to continue this MYTH that Blacks played no part within the Southern Cause?

This one is trickier to answer but it boils down to class manipulation and framing the argument so that most will answer with emotions rather than reason.

* I can't say whether or not these errors are intentional; but I feel it is worth pointing out that this story allows the media groups the opportunity to shape and color the current generations perceptions of the past.

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


S&F. The author supposedly did a lot of her research online, but even wikipedia has the correct number of states in the confederacy and the date the US entered WW1.

Somebody on the review committee definitely dropped the ball on this text.

Something of note that yes, the victors DO write the history books.

Growing up in Virginia in the 60's and 70's and reading the history texts that were used in the schools in my county even then, there were gross inaccuracies with a distinctly "northern centric" point of view.

Thank god when I went to college my first history professor was a Virginian too, and laid out the real facts on a number of issues, such as where and when the very first Thanksgiving happened - Berkely Plantation, Virginia in 1619.

Well Im from virginia, Im out of high school but I recall the history books sucking, but most of my classes were a joke anyway.

Originally posted by CREAM
Well Im from virginia, Im out of high school but I recall the history books sucking, but most of my classes were a joke anyway.

AMEN!

My high school American History teacher was put on probation because the majority of his students were flunking his classes. He was told that 80% of his students needed to pass his course or he would be fired.

His solution... open book test/exams... and even allowed us to yell answers to our friends across the room.

I should point out that my High School now has a rating of 35. 0 being (worst) and 100 being (best).

...shakes head in disappointment..

History is definitely written by the victors. A co-worker and myself were discussing the Civil War just yesterday and how history have a lot of inaccuracies in regards to it. A lot of history portrays the north as having the only African-American soldiers fighting in the war. When in truth there was plenty of African-Americans fighting for the south as well.

S&F

Originally posted by Terrormaster
History is definitely written by the victors. A co-worker and myself were discussing the Civil War just yesterday and how history have a lot of inaccuracies in regards to it. A lot of history portrays the north as having the only African-American soldiers fighting in the war. When in truth there was plenty of African-Americans fighting for the south as well.

S&F

so...slaves fought for the confederates, so they could remain slaves?? now that's what i call a volunteer army!!
i can hear it now..."yesssa massa, i caint wait to faigh agin those bad ole northerners who want to let us go free, i like be'in yeh slave, massa, i trulee do.

Outcomes based education and forced schooling destroyed any chance at a highly intelligent populace. The OBE system wastes half of the student's time making them give information back, instead of giving them inputs the whole time. Add that to curriculum passed down from a central authority, and you have a system that ensures must students individual intelligence will be in ruins by the time they leave high school. Most of the geniuses in human history have been largely self-educated.

reply to post by Areveli


What was the north taxing the south to devastation on?

It's one thing when mistakes are made in text books due to sloppy or poor research, or the crass free-market principle of buying the cheapest product out there, but what is far more insidious is when "mistakes" are made based on an ideological or religious agenda, that seems to overlook historical facts that run counter to what the reigning majority feels about a topic.

There seems to be a hard ideological push to promote the idea that slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War.

I personally feel that this alone is one of the most damaging conspiracies there can be. They are re writing history it seems to conform to political ideology.

here is another thread posted from this morning:

History textbook inaccuracies

reply to post by Areveli


I'm an AZ-to-VA (and now in CA, but visiting VA for holidays) transplant. I learned that the Civil War was a war to stop slavery (I'm 47, so my education was late 60's-70's-80's). I had never heard the phrase "War of Northern Agression" until I moved to VA in 1999. My Southern brothers quickly set me straight on the real history of the Civil War. I did take the time to verify what I was being told.

History is written by the victor, with a Politically Correct publicist whispering in his ear to make sure the winner looked good and was absolutely justified in their actions.

In other words, history, as taught in our schools, is bullpoopy.

Also, in VA (among other states and/or communistwealths) law enforcement and lawmakers have no concept of what the Constitution is supposed to be about. Maybe if their history classes were better, their lawmakers would "get it".

At it again eh? DD. S&F&
This is a pet peeve of mine as well. This subject came up in my thread on the flat earth, here is a link that was posted by acrux.

Nonsense in schoolbooks

Our history books might have errors, but the science textbooks are far worse. The easiest way to imagine them, is to imagine textbooks that would have been relevant and up-to-date in the 1960's. They're at least 50 years behind the times and on some subjects even worse than that. Especially in elementary schools, they simplify scientific principles so much that they aren't even accurate anymore.



As far as how many Confederate states there were....

What states were part of the Confederacy during the Civil War?

Answer
The 11 states of the Confederacy were Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.



The famous "Stars and Bars" flag of the CSA had 13 stars, because both Missouri and Kentucky had a "government in exile" in Richmond and were considered by the CSA to also be states.

wiki.answers.com...


Just goes to show what they say about history being written by the victors.


According to the Federals, there were 11 Confederate States. According to the Confederacy, there were 13 fighting for their independence.

Originally posted by jimmyx
so...slaves fought for the confederates, so they could remain slaves?? now that's what i call a volunteer army!!
i can hear it now..."yesssa massa, i caint wait to faigh agin those bad ole northerners who want to let us go free, i like be'in yeh slave, massa, i trulee do.

There were African Americans that fought voluntarily for the CSA. General Lee even issued an order that any black man who fought for the CSA would be provided his freedom. They should have freed all slaves before the war was even fought, or better yet never even started the practice in the first place, and even Lee thought slavery turned God against the Confederacy and that's why they were doomed to lose the war.

The controversy was over the number of African Americans fighting for the South, which is something I'm not very familiar with. But that there were at least some who did fight, on both sides, is a historical fact.

Originally posted by GogoVicMorrow
reply to post by Areveli

 

What was the north taxing the south to devastation on?

Look up South Carolina's near miss with secession in the 1830's.

South Carolina was threatening to secede way before the Civil War, not over slavery, but over excessive taxation from the Federal government. From then it just bubbled under the surface until there was finally overwhelming popular sentiment in South Carolina for a number of reasons, from taxation, to slavery, to the 10th amendment, that the whole state seceded.

Other states were reluctant to secede until the Fed called on other Southern states to organize their armies to invade South Carolina. Rather than invade another state, the whole South was eventually forced to secede.

South Carolinian George McDuffie popularized the Forty Bale theory to explain South Carolina's economic woes. According to this theory, tariffs that became progressively higher in 1816, 1824 and 1828 had the same effect as if a thief stole forty bales out of a hundred from every barn. The tariffs applied to imports of things like iron, wool and finished cotton products. The Forty Bale theory was based on faulty math in that Britain could sell finished cotton goods made from Southern raw cotton around the world, not just to the United States. Still, the theory was a popular explanation for economic problems that were caused in large part by overproduction of cotton in the lower South, and less cotton production from South Carolina's depleted soil. South Carolinians, rightly or wrongly, blamed the tariff for the fact that cotton prices fell from 18 cents a pound to 9 cents a pound over the 1820s.[20] ...

The Tariff of 1828, which South Carolina agitators called the Tariff of Abominations, set the tariff rate at 50 percent. Although John C. Calhoun previously supported tariffs, he anonymously wrote the South Carolina Exposition and Protest, which was a states' rights argument for nullifying the tariff. Calhoun's theory was that the threat of secession would lead to a "concurrent majority" that would possess every white minorities consent, as opposed to a "tyrannical majority" of Northerners controlling the South.[20]

en.wikipedia.org...

Revisionist history seems to pre-date conspiracy theories as the "tin-hat" brigade. Any evidence that doesn't conform to the victor's official line is quickly swept under the carpet or deemed unpatriotic or worse racist. Need I mention the holocaust?

I don't remember any of my classes back in Georgia in the 60's and 70's mentioning the USA's imperialist agenda that was long-standing even then and has only escalated to present day. I was convinced that we were a force for good in the world and what a surprise to find that all along we've been fighting wars to further the goals of big business e.g. bankers, oil companies, mining, defense (sic), textiles, etc.

Norman Dodd was the chief investigator for the Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt
Foundations and Comparable Organizations 1952 - here is how they put together a strategy to monopolise the History teaching and publishing business and re-write it to suit their agendas.

It was this committee that Norman Dodd served as the chief investigator, and it is in that capacity that we now see him at the New York offices of the Ford Foundation. We are now in the year 1954, and we hear Mr. Gaither say to Mr. Dodd, “Would you be interested in knowing what we do here at the Ford Foundation?” And Mr. Dodd says, “Yes! That’s exactly why I’m here. I would be very interested, sir.” Then, without any prodding at all, Gaither says, “Mr. Dodd, we operate in response to directives, the substance of which is that we shall use our grant making power to alter life in the United States so that it can be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union.” Dodd almost falls off of his chair when he hears that. Then he says to Gaither, “Well, sir, you can do anything you please with your grant making powers, but don’t you think you have an obligation to make a disclosure to the American people? You enjoy tax exemption, which means you are indirectly subsidized by taxpayers, so, why don’t you tell the Congress and the American people what you just told me?” And Gaither replies, “We would never dream of doing such a thing.”

A STRATEGY TO CONTROL THE TEACHING OF HISTORY

The question that arises in Mr. Dodd’s mind is: How would it be possible for anyone to think they could alter life in the United States so it could be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union and, by implication, with other nations of the world? What an absurd thought that would be – especially in 1954. That would require the abandonment of American concepts of justice, traditions of liberty, national sovereignty, cultural identity, constitutional protections, and political independence, to name just a few. Yet, these men were deadly serious about it. They were not focused on the question of if this could be done. Their only question was how to do it? What would it take to change American attitudes? What would it take to convince them to abandon their heritage in exchange for global union?

cont..................

www.freedomforceinternational.org...

www.freedomforceinternational.org...

www.freedomforceinternational.org...