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Westrim
Current Version
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I\'m deleting the entire real life section, for the same reasont hat we don\'t want it in Complete Monster and such. [[CaptainObvious It\'s too prone to real life political arguments]] and we\'re better off without it.
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I\\\'m deleting the entire real life section, for the same reason that we don\\\'t want it in Complete Monster and such. [[CaptainObvious It\\\'s too prone to real life political arguments]] and we\\\'re better off without it.
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* Franklin D. Roosevelt went to sometimes-great lengths to hide his disability during his presidency; due to pressure from disability-rights groups one of the statues at the FDR Memorial depicts him in a wheelchair (modeled after one he actually used). The movie \'\'Pearl Harbor\'\' goes the other way, having him \'\'standing up\'\' out of his wheelchair in front of the press corps, although FDR was a very strong guy -- he could \
to:
* Franklin D. Roosevelt went to sometimes-great lengths to hide his disability during his presidency; due to pressure from disability-rights groups one of the statues at the FDR Memorial depicts him in a wheelchair (modeled after one he actually used). The movie \\\'\\\'Pearl Harbor\\\'\\\' goes the other way, having him \\\'\\\'standing up\\\'\\\' out of his wheelchair in front of the press corps, although FDR was a very strong guy -- he could \\\"fake\\\" standing up for brief periods.
* Helen Keller\\\'s childhood story is usually used as AnAesop embodying the American belief that anyone can do anything if they try. It\\\'s far more rare for these stories to acknowledge her outspoken socialist beliefs as an adult.
* When history textbooks in American public schools discuss Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., they only go up until his \\\"I Have a Dream\\\" speech, and then skip ahead several years to his assassination. In the years following the Civil Rights Act, King turned his attention to more \\\"socialist\\\" ideals. In fact, King\\\'s politics were so left-wing, J. Edgar Hoover was convinced that he was a communist, and was determined to discredit him both personally and professionally (though Hoover’s being a racist, too, didn\\\'t exactly help). The reason King was in Memphis in 1968 was to mediate a sanitation strike. The history books invariably mention only briefly that he was in Memphis \\\"...to give a speech.\\\"
** By the same token, people tend to forget Malcolm X\\\'s shift [[strike:toward the right]] to a more moderate view toward the end of his life. He began to take a more moderate viewpoint and separated himself from the Nation of Islam, something that many people believe got him killed. To give a bit of definition to the shift: After leaving the Nation of Islam, Malcolm had taken some time traveling around Asia, Africa and Europe, reportedly returning with a more global perspective on racism and human rights problems. The following is among the 1965 phrases attributed to him prior to his assassination.: \\\"[L]istening to leaders like Nasser, Ben Bella, and Nkrumah awakened me to the dangers of racism. I realized racism isn\\\'t just a black and white problem. It\\\'s brought bloodbaths to about every nation on earth at one time or another. Brother, remember the time that white college girl came into the restaurant -- the one who wanted to help the [Black] Muslims and the whites get together -- and I told her there wasn\\\'t a ghost of a chance and she went away crying? Well, I\\\'ve lived to regret that incident. In many parts of the African continent I saw white students helping black people. Something like this kills a lot of argument. I did many things as a [Black] Muslim that I\\\'m sorry for now. I was a zombie then -- like all [Black] Muslims -- I was hypnotized, pointed in a certain direction and told to march. Well, I guess a man\\\'s entitled to make a fool of himself if he\\\'s ready to pay the cost. It cost me 12 years. That was a bad scene, brother. The sickness and madness of those days -- I\\\'m glad to be free of them\\\".
** Advocating a less extreme solution to the problems of racism by [[UnfortunateImplications moving towards more peaceful reconciliation as opposed to violent means hardly counts as a shift to the right]].
** I can\\\'t really see how someone who had previously held very (no pun intended) black-and-white views on the issue of race realizing that, in fact, people should not be judged on the color of their skin is a shift to the \\\'\\\'right\\\'\\\'. Just because an organization is opposed to \\\"white America,\\\" it doesn\\\'t automatically make that organization a left-wing one.
**Watch the news or read any paper and you will easily find out which of the \\\"right\\\" or \\\"left\\\" looks at everything through the \\\"color\\\" lens and which thinks that America should be \\\"color blind\\\" and that everyone should be seen as just an American and all treated the same, not as (insert victim name here) - Americans and separated into as many different groups as possible.
*** Being aware of racism does not make one a racist. And ignoring it where it really exists can be very counter-productive.
* While a majority of French citizens admit that colonial empires were not a good idea to begin with, some who are nostalgic of the colonial era still try to act as if the \\\"positive aspects\\\" outweighed the crimes, corruption, and abuses committed during this period. One French member of the National Assembly tried to change a law so that French schools would have to present history in a more \\\"positive\\\" light: it started a \\\'\\\'very\\\'\\\' big controversy and the law was eventually scrapped. Yet to this day, you can still find in France people who will claim with a straight face that the French army did not torture during the war of Algeria (even if \\\'\\\'French\\\'\\\' soldiers and officers admitted to have done so), that there was no raping of local women by French soldiers and officials during the colonial years (keep in mind that during the 19th century, \\\'\\\'state propaganda\\\'\\\' used \\\"it\\\'s easy to have sex with the locals\\\" as an argument to convince people to work for the colonial administration) and that the French colonial empire was nothing more than \\\"the CareBears go to Africa\\\". Of course, if you keep in mind than more than 10% of the French citizenry comes from the former colonies, you can easily imagine that such claims are \\\'\\\'not\\\'\\\' well accepted by everyone.
**This troper came across a particularly chilling quotation from a Paul Teitgen, a French official in Algeria and former member of the Resistance during WW2: \\\"in visiting the centres, I recognised on certain detainees the deep marks of cruelties and tortures that I personally suffered fourteen years ago in the Gestapo cellars\\\"
* Depending on which Finn you ask, the war of 1918 was either an independence war to keep Finland from getting re-annexed to Russia (which was being transformed into the Soviet Union due to their own civil war) or class warfare between rich land- and factory owners and poor workers. The mortality rate of the prisoners of war is also a sore spot.
** Also, the Winter War in 1939 and the Continuation War in 1941 was either caused by a FalseFlagOperation to secure Soviet Union\\\'s holdings (as defined by the Molotov-Ribbentrop deal) or an unprovoked attack by the \\\"fascist\\\" Finland. Officially the matter has been settled with Finland taking the blame according to the Paris Peace Treaty and President Yeltsin acknowledging that the Winter War was a war of aggression. However, nationalists on both sides still try to fan the flames.
* The fate of a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Night memorial to Soviet troops]] in Tallinn caused accusations of this to fly back and forth between Estonia and Russia.
** Russia in general gets quite a bit of this, particularly regarding Soviet history. For instance, the official story is that the re-annexation of the Baltic Republics in 1940 was the legal reunification of breakaway provinces with the Soviet Union... patently ignoring the savage wars of independence and 2 decades+ of independence said \\\"breakaway provinces\\\" had. Also expect mysterious gaps in knowledge to appear regarding Moldavia and Poland.
* Swedish history classes are somewhat peculiar when it comes to WWII. While most of the high school years are dedicated to the horrors of the Holocaust, the horrific war on the continent, and the dramatic happenings in our neighboring countries, Sweden\\\'s part of the war is usually just touched on in a sentence or two, and it\\\'s easy to see why. While Finland fought quite successfully against the Soviet Union, the occupied Denmark managed to subvert a lot of prosecution against the Jews, and Norway got occupied only after a betrayal by a fascist local leader, Sweden spent the entire war trading with the Nazis, hushing any voices raised against them in a great propaganda campaign, and even sending back some of the Norwegian refugees. SoYeah...
** To be entirely fair, Stockholm wasn\\\'t exactly entirely willing in the matter (and being surrounded on all sides by German forces probably didn\\\'t help), and Berlin\\\'s usual response to Swedish refusal was to either dance a few large warships off the coast or sink a few Swedish ships in order to \\\"get the message across.\\\" Not only that, but Germany had serious plans to invade Sweden during the summer of 1943 (the operation was code-named \\\"Two\\\"), and if not for reverses in Russia and Italy at that time, might have gone ahead with the invasion.
*** In spite of having to carefully balance public opinion at home and abroad, many Swedes traded with the Nazis including a minor prince. Most of them were disowned by their families. When the war ended, it was revealed that they had been deep-cover spies who had provided the Allies with vital information on Germany\\\'s infrastructure and resources, liased with local resistance, risked death and betrayal, and had to hide their hatred for the regime while hobnobbing with some of the highest ranking Nazis.
** Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, the Vatican, and other countries that remained neutral during World War II suffer from varying levels of this as well. Swiss citizens who have revealed the depth of collaboration of the Swiss banking industry with Nazi Germany have actually had to flee the country to avoid reprisals. The Vatican has come under criticism for not condemning the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini strongly enough. Spain favored Germany at the beginning of the war, and then slowly swung to the Allied side as the tide turned in their favor. All tend to emphasize the sanctuary or escape routes they provided to victims of Nazism-and quietly sweep any aid given to Germany, Italy, or Japan under the carpet.
* Averted (mostly) in Australia. Having such a young (less than 300 years) White History, a big chunk of Australian history is dedicated to pre-settlement (usually a mixture of the most common Aboriginal mythologies and what historians and archaeologists have pieced together). At the same time, another prominent portion of Modern Australian history concerns the \\\"Stolen Generation\\\" and general mistreatment of the Natives. That said, there are those, including former Prime Minister John Howard, who object to the teaching of the \\\"black armband\\\" view of Australian history (\\\'\\\'i. e.\\\'\\\', the suffering of the Aboriginal peoples after Colonization). They regard it as too \\\"negative\\\", and would like to see Australian history in a more \\\"positive\\\" light, and have had some success in seeing that done.
* One tends to find the views on a nation\\\'s own history, as reflected in its school syllabus, are generally colored by [[TooSoon how long ago]] it happened, [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge how noisy the other side got]], [[RetCon who won]], and whether they ever [[TheAtoner apologized]]. When it comes to [[IgnoredEpiphany indigenous peoples and colonization]], though...
* Both the Republic of China (Taiwan) and (especially) the People\\\'s Republic of China (the mainland) get more then a bit of this as well. Cases in point: Tibet, Mongolia, Xinjiang, and (respectively) the Korean War and the exact nature of the Kuomintang during its \\\"rule\\\" of China.
* The Texas State Board of Education recently made [[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html?hp a number of changes]] to the state curriculum standards for social studies (all in support of American conservative beliefs and principles) despite having no experts in the subject among its members.
** Judging by Feinman\\\'s memoirs, it\\\'s how this always done anyway. Also, since when there \\\'\\\'is\\\'\\\' such a creature as a non-biased \\\"social studies expert\\\" on this Earth?
[[/folder]]
* Helen Keller\\\'s childhood story is usually used as AnAesop embodying the American belief that anyone can do anything if they try. It\\\'s far more rare for these stories to acknowledge her outspoken socialist beliefs as an adult.
* When history textbooks in American public schools discuss Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., they only go up until his \\\"I Have a Dream\\\" speech, and then skip ahead several years to his assassination. In the years following the Civil Rights Act, King turned his attention to more \\\"socialist\\\" ideals. In fact, King\\\'s politics were so left-wing, J. Edgar Hoover was convinced that he was a communist, and was determined to discredit him both personally and professionally (though Hoover’s being a racist, too, didn\\\'t exactly help). The reason King was in Memphis in 1968 was to mediate a sanitation strike. The history books invariably mention only briefly that he was in Memphis \\\"...to give a speech.\\\"
** By the same token, people tend to forget Malcolm X\\\'s shift [[strike:toward the right]] to a more moderate view toward the end of his life. He began to take a more moderate viewpoint and separated himself from the Nation of Islam, something that many people believe got him killed. To give a bit of definition to the shift: After leaving the Nation of Islam, Malcolm had taken some time traveling around Asia, Africa and Europe, reportedly returning with a more global perspective on racism and human rights problems. The following is among the 1965 phrases attributed to him prior to his assassination.: \\\"[L]istening to leaders like Nasser, Ben Bella, and Nkrumah awakened me to the dangers of racism. I realized racism isn\\\'t just a black and white problem. It\\\'s brought bloodbaths to about every nation on earth at one time or another. Brother, remember the time that white college girl came into the restaurant -- the one who wanted to help the [Black] Muslims and the whites get together -- and I told her there wasn\\\'t a ghost of a chance and she went away crying? Well, I\\\'ve lived to regret that incident. In many parts of the African continent I saw white students helping black people. Something like this kills a lot of argument. I did many things as a [Black] Muslim that I\\\'m sorry for now. I was a zombie then -- like all [Black] Muslims -- I was hypnotized, pointed in a certain direction and told to march. Well, I guess a man\\\'s entitled to make a fool of himself if he\\\'s ready to pay the cost. It cost me 12 years. That was a bad scene, brother. The sickness and madness of those days -- I\\\'m glad to be free of them\\\".
** Advocating a less extreme solution to the problems of racism by [[UnfortunateImplications moving towards more peaceful reconciliation as opposed to violent means hardly counts as a shift to the right]].
** I can\\\'t really see how someone who had previously held very (no pun intended) black-and-white views on the issue of race realizing that, in fact, people should not be judged on the color of their skin is a shift to the \\\'\\\'right\\\'\\\'. Just because an organization is opposed to \\\"white America,\\\" it doesn\\\'t automatically make that organization a left-wing one.
**Watch the news or read any paper and you will easily find out which of the \\\"right\\\" or \\\"left\\\" looks at everything through the \\\"color\\\" lens and which thinks that America should be \\\"color blind\\\" and that everyone should be seen as just an American and all treated the same, not as (insert victim name here) - Americans and separated into as many different groups as possible.
*** Being aware of racism does not make one a racist. And ignoring it where it really exists can be very counter-productive.
* While a majority of French citizens admit that colonial empires were not a good idea to begin with, some who are nostalgic of the colonial era still try to act as if the \\\"positive aspects\\\" outweighed the crimes, corruption, and abuses committed during this period. One French member of the National Assembly tried to change a law so that French schools would have to present history in a more \\\"positive\\\" light: it started a \\\'\\\'very\\\'\\\' big controversy and the law was eventually scrapped. Yet to this day, you can still find in France people who will claim with a straight face that the French army did not torture during the war of Algeria (even if \\\'\\\'French\\\'\\\' soldiers and officers admitted to have done so), that there was no raping of local women by French soldiers and officials during the colonial years (keep in mind that during the 19th century, \\\'\\\'state propaganda\\\'\\\' used \\\"it\\\'s easy to have sex with the locals\\\" as an argument to convince people to work for the colonial administration) and that the French colonial empire was nothing more than \\\"the CareBears go to Africa\\\". Of course, if you keep in mind than more than 10% of the French citizenry comes from the former colonies, you can easily imagine that such claims are \\\'\\\'not\\\'\\\' well accepted by everyone.
**This troper came across a particularly chilling quotation from a Paul Teitgen, a French official in Algeria and former member of the Resistance during WW2: \\\"in visiting the centres, I recognised on certain detainees the deep marks of cruelties and tortures that I personally suffered fourteen years ago in the Gestapo cellars\\\"
* Depending on which Finn you ask, the war of 1918 was either an independence war to keep Finland from getting re-annexed to Russia (which was being transformed into the Soviet Union due to their own civil war) or class warfare between rich land- and factory owners and poor workers. The mortality rate of the prisoners of war is also a sore spot.
** Also, the Winter War in 1939 and the Continuation War in 1941 was either caused by a FalseFlagOperation to secure Soviet Union\\\'s holdings (as defined by the Molotov-Ribbentrop deal) or an unprovoked attack by the \\\"fascist\\\" Finland. Officially the matter has been settled with Finland taking the blame according to the Paris Peace Treaty and President Yeltsin acknowledging that the Winter War was a war of aggression. However, nationalists on both sides still try to fan the flames.
* The fate of a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Night memorial to Soviet troops]] in Tallinn caused accusations of this to fly back and forth between Estonia and Russia.
** Russia in general gets quite a bit of this, particularly regarding Soviet history. For instance, the official story is that the re-annexation of the Baltic Republics in 1940 was the legal reunification of breakaway provinces with the Soviet Union... patently ignoring the savage wars of independence and 2 decades+ of independence said \\\"breakaway provinces\\\" had. Also expect mysterious gaps in knowledge to appear regarding Moldavia and Poland.
* Swedish history classes are somewhat peculiar when it comes to WWII. While most of the high school years are dedicated to the horrors of the Holocaust, the horrific war on the continent, and the dramatic happenings in our neighboring countries, Sweden\\\'s part of the war is usually just touched on in a sentence or two, and it\\\'s easy to see why. While Finland fought quite successfully against the Soviet Union, the occupied Denmark managed to subvert a lot of prosecution against the Jews, and Norway got occupied only after a betrayal by a fascist local leader, Sweden spent the entire war trading with the Nazis, hushing any voices raised against them in a great propaganda campaign, and even sending back some of the Norwegian refugees. SoYeah...
** To be entirely fair, Stockholm wasn\\\'t exactly entirely willing in the matter (and being surrounded on all sides by German forces probably didn\\\'t help), and Berlin\\\'s usual response to Swedish refusal was to either dance a few large warships off the coast or sink a few Swedish ships in order to \\\"get the message across.\\\" Not only that, but Germany had serious plans to invade Sweden during the summer of 1943 (the operation was code-named \\\"Two\\\"), and if not for reverses in Russia and Italy at that time, might have gone ahead with the invasion.
*** In spite of having to carefully balance public opinion at home and abroad, many Swedes traded with the Nazis including a minor prince. Most of them were disowned by their families. When the war ended, it was revealed that they had been deep-cover spies who had provided the Allies with vital information on Germany\\\'s infrastructure and resources, liased with local resistance, risked death and betrayal, and had to hide their hatred for the regime while hobnobbing with some of the highest ranking Nazis.
** Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, the Vatican, and other countries that remained neutral during World War II suffer from varying levels of this as well. Swiss citizens who have revealed the depth of collaboration of the Swiss banking industry with Nazi Germany have actually had to flee the country to avoid reprisals. The Vatican has come under criticism for not condemning the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini strongly enough. Spain favored Germany at the beginning of the war, and then slowly swung to the Allied side as the tide turned in their favor. All tend to emphasize the sanctuary or escape routes they provided to victims of Nazism-and quietly sweep any aid given to Germany, Italy, or Japan under the carpet.
* Averted (mostly) in Australia. Having such a young (less than 300 years) White History, a big chunk of Australian history is dedicated to pre-settlement (usually a mixture of the most common Aboriginal mythologies and what historians and archaeologists have pieced together). At the same time, another prominent portion of Modern Australian history concerns the \\\"Stolen Generation\\\" and general mistreatment of the Natives. That said, there are those, including former Prime Minister John Howard, who object to the teaching of the \\\"black armband\\\" view of Australian history (\\\'\\\'i. e.\\\'\\\', the suffering of the Aboriginal peoples after Colonization). They regard it as too \\\"negative\\\", and would like to see Australian history in a more \\\"positive\\\" light, and have had some success in seeing that done.
* One tends to find the views on a nation\\\'s own history, as reflected in its school syllabus, are generally colored by [[TooSoon how long ago]] it happened, [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge how noisy the other side got]], [[RetCon who won]], and whether they ever [[TheAtoner apologized]]. When it comes to [[IgnoredEpiphany indigenous peoples and colonization]], though...
* Both the Republic of China (Taiwan) and (especially) the People\\\'s Republic of China (the mainland) get more then a bit of this as well. Cases in point: Tibet, Mongolia, Xinjiang, and (respectively) the Korean War and the exact nature of the Kuomintang during its \\\"rule\\\" of China.
* The Texas State Board of Education recently made [[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html?hp a number of changes]] to the state curriculum standards for social studies (all in support of American conservative beliefs and principles) despite having no experts in the subject among its members.
** Judging by Feinman\\\'s memoirs, it\\\'s how this always done anyway. Also, since when there \\\'\\\'is\\\'\\\' such a creature as a non-biased \\\"social studies expert\\\" on this Earth?
[[/folder]]
