Liberals, Progressives, Leftists, whatever you call yourself, I understand you’re unhappy about Trump and conservatives in general. You have shown the observing American public your outrage. Which, by the way, is not doing much besides straining your credibility.
Let me give you an illustration; if a child is swinging a hammer and throwing firecrackers in your house, is your first instinct to talk to the child calmly and find out how it feels or is your first instinct to restrain it?
I understand that the vast majority of leftists are not vandalising property. I’d like to see other leftists, particularly celebrities, news anchors, and politicians come out and condemn these actions, but that’s another issue for another time.
The issue right here at this time is the misrepresentation of historical events to make an argument, as exemplified here.
The summary of the events of Thanksgiving given by today.com isn’t wrong. It’s very broad and simplistic, which is perfectly fine for explaining the event to children, as it’s meant to do.
To the author, I understand you’re a leftist writing to a leftist audience, so maybe your audience has a child’s understanding of Thanksgiving, but not everyone does.
Something this summary doesn’t talk about was the socialist organization of the early colonists which lead to the Starving Time in Jamestown. Was that hidden from you, as you complain about later in your article?
Regardless, the summary was set up as a falsity to be contrasted with the supposed actual event as it is described by the United American Indians of New England or UAINE.
Even then, according to UAINE’s own website, the event concerning Governor John Winthrop is not the first Thanksgiving. In fact, the first Thanksgiving described largely coincides with the children’s summary.
What you also left out was the involvement of Mohegan and Narragansett Native American tribes which helped the colonists defeat and slaughter the Pequot tribe. Something else that was hidden from you, perhaps?
Did the massacre of the Pequot tribe happen on Thanksgiving? Yes, but there is a difference between the massacre causing the celebration and the event and the celebration coincidentally happening on the same day.
With regards to your accusation about not learning about the Native Americans in South America when Columbus arrived, I actually recall learning a lot about the Aztec and Inca tribes in middle and high school. Maybe you didn’t, which is a failure on your teacher’s part.
In my humble opinion, this “America = Bad, Everyone else = Good” hysteria needs to stop. I’m not going to defend Donald Trump. There’s something you should know about history; it writes itself.
How?
Military documents, business reports, personal writings, and so on. Maybe your interpretation of the events happening around you will be excavated in the far future, but unless you're documenting something that has never been documented, you're not adding anything to history. The idea that you can write history for the next generation seems a little arrogant to me, not to mention scary (1984, much?).
Now, that doesn’t mean we can’t write how we feel about history. We as people put our own interpretations on history. We’re the ones who decide whether or not a time period or event was good or bad for humanity based upon our own moral authorities.
With that said, prove to me that socialism is what we as a people ought to strive for before you declare yourself on “the right side of history.”