Something is rotten in Denver

Have  you heard about the HS students who are spontaneously protesting an AP American History course because the book encourages patriotism?  This strikes me as really, Really fishy because I was in HS once, and often debated with teachers.  The first thing that strikes me as utterly weird is the “spontaneous protest” label.  Why would students protest a class that which they have not yet taken?  Why would 1000 kids protest a class that only a very few take? In my old high school if you told the kids they would have no prom or homecoming, they would rise up to the man and protest.  But tell them they are getting a new algebra book or history book and they lean forward, arms crossed across the desk and say, “whatever!” Methinks the students doth protest too much. And they’re being orchestrated.

Secondly, they protest patriotism?  Since when does someone who goes to Ponca High Wildcat land say, “Well, I actually favor the Maroons or the Pioneers.”?  Such talk is heresy! School patriotism is so thick in the air it is almost blinding.  And concerning patriotism for the country, what senior doesn’t know some fellow student who last year joined the Marines or the Army?

Jerry Shaw, Osage and retired Director of Native American Studies at Wichita State University was my first American History teacher, the year after he graduated from college.  He used the book but also taught, with family stories about the Indian mistreatment and the KKK.  We talked Slavery and Southern States Rights from every angle.  I don’t even remember the title of our book.  The teacher supplemented the material.  But in the end, Jerry noted, most Indians are patriotic and proud.  A high proportion enlist in the military.  America may have its faults, but Americans also look faults square in the eye and admit our mistakes. America owns up to it and forgives.

 Not so for many in the rest of the world.  We’ve had 5 foreign exchange kids.  They come from countries older than ours by a thousand years.  All have stories of sad portions of their history when some tyrant or foreign power ruled and thus they are a little put off by Americans who tend to lecture everyone else.  USA is lucky to have had no disastrous era.  But rarely do you hear any admission of guilt from overseas.  It was always the fault of a bad king or some others—never the people themselves.  So what about the Japanese soldiers who raped Korean women so badly that the two countries don’t get along to this day? What about Russian genocide in Latvia?

Turkey.  In 1917, knowing that they would lose and be reduced to Asia Minor, the Turks decided to kill off all the Christian Armenians.  The holocaust of 1.5 million Armenians was not protested by the West hence Hitler concluded, he could pull the same number on Jews with little problem. The Ottomans claimed every first born son of Christians to be property of the state.  They carted them off to Istanbul, castrated them and made they Muslims, eunuchs and a crack division of palace guards.   Have you ever heard a Turk say sadly that his country lamented this?

So considering the students in Denver, who would be orchestrating them?  Look for someone who hates patriotism because they can’t forgive.  Someone who just wants to rub American noses in the dirt.  Who would do this?

The Left.  Slavery and Indian  and Irish mistreatment must be a source of never-ending unforgiveness. But what about their own mistakes made by progressive Presidents?  The Left  will never admit to mistakes like Reagan did about the Beirut bombing.  Wilson’s principles in Versailles and Trianon Treaty after WW I were so harsh and divisive on the German people and the Balkans it set them up to look for a strongman, a dictator.  I’ve never heard a liberal American historian conclude this even though most historians worldwide now take it as a given.  Whatever history book the left wants probably concludes that poor old Woodrow was so victimized by Europeans and Republicans that he had a stroke.  FDR’s New Deal shocked the business world so badly they hunkered down and the recession of 1931 grew into a Great Depression.  You’ll never hear the left admit that either.

Who then do I expect instigated the student riot?  My suspicion is the NEA.  Tune in again next week when 1000 students protest that new Calculus book used by the 18 advanced placement students.