Worst Case of Historical Revisionism?

[mr.moon1488]

Probably the complete lack of mention of the Barbary slave trade in Muttmurican education. It's particularly funny because it's even briefly mentioned in the very opening of the Marine Corps hymn, so you know a bunch of proud mutts have encountered it, but never took the time to actually look into it. Other than that, probably the veneration of the great ejaculator Abraham Lincoln as anything more than a petty dictator who got (righteously) killed before he was able to solidify full control. The dude no shit put down by military force a rebellion by about a third of the US population, completely altered the form of government in the US from a confederation of sovereign states to the current centralized government and then dumb mutts, later on, put his statue in a stony throne for it all while bitching about the kings of old being tyrannical oppressors.

Other than that, probably the way the US revolution is presented. The US revolution is always presented as some kind of struggle against the "tyrannical kings," but that's just silly if you examine the history with even a slightly objective lens. Firstly, King George the 3rd was very limited in his actual authority by the time of the US revolution. By 1650 the British Parliament was by far the most dominant force in the UK (they'd actually executed a king by this point against the will of the population) and absolutely had more reason to keep the US out of parliament than what King George III did since a US entry into parliament might have actually helped him by dividing the parliamentary factions. So it was really a war between a want-to-be republic and a republic that was only on paper, not a republic. Said want-to-be republic was also backed by a French King, who said want-to-be republic later betrayed in favor of a bunch of violent criminals who established one of the most dystopian regimes in history.

Edit:
Also, how many uprisings did the US put down by military force right after being established?

Uncle Schlomo would never have fucked over a bunch of veterans of the revolution to the point of causing them to fight back and then genocided them for it right? That would have set a pattern of behavior, wouldn't it?

 

[Scipio Americanus]

much of ancient egypt's nobility was hellenic, Cleopatra for example.

Not ancient Egypt. Egyptian nobility only became ethnically Greek after Alexander's conquest. The further the Ptolemaic dynasty progressed, the less culturally Greek it became, since the dynasty made a large effort to integrate into the old paradigm of Egyptian nobility. I'd argue that their cultural Greekness is pretty on par with some 5th-generation American flaunting the fact that he's "39% Irish" on St. Paddy's Day.

The nobility of ancient Egypt wasn't exactly an ethnic monolith, either. Before Alexander, the Nubians and Persians conquered Egypt late in its history. @Corpun is probably right though, most of the people of the time that we would associate with Egypt (i.e. Lower Egypt) would look Mediterranean. Upper Egypt, especially the closer you get to Nubia, would start looking more and more sub-Saharan African.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

The removing of statues because they represent "wrongthink" is the biggest recent example I can think of.

 

[Skitarii]

he was even named their "Futa Lonco"

AUGUSTO FUTACHET???

 

[LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV]]

Rome bad, their lions ate 6 gorillion ((cristians)) so subverting them then demonizing their native culture was good!

 

[Becky McDonald]

This has been a major argument from the bughive and their ilk these past few years, but the idea that American automotive manufacturers conspired together to rip the boxcars from the streets purely to sell cars.

Nope. Not true in the fucking slightest.

What actually happened was General Motors, Firestone Tires, and Standard Oil formed a syndicate together. Since GM had a lot of success manufacturing buses, they figured they could make a shitload of money by working together and selling fully-made, fully-furnished, fully-fuelled buses to various councils and municipalities. The way they probably presented it was something along the lines of "you can make us very rich and we can make you very rich by getting rid of your hard-to-maintain boxcars and selling you these buses which we'll maintain for you", and if you were a local government from the era struggling to maintain your public transport infrastructure or simply didn't like how much it cost you, the decision was a no-brainer.

The bughive has somehow twisted this into meanies representing Big Oil pressuring governments into removing boxcars so that personal transport could be foisted upon the population and make them very rich. The fact of the matter is cars didn't factor into it at any point. It was to sell buses fuelled on Standard Oil and running on Firestone tires. Break any part of that syndicate by driving a Ford on Goodyear tires and fuelled at Unocal 76, and the syndicate didn't get your money.

Most people who drove their own cars probably weren't the type of people to have used the boxcars to begin with, and wouldn't use buses either.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

This has been a major argument from the bughive and their ilk these past few years, but the idea that American automotive manufacturers conspired together to rip the boxcars from the streets purely to sell cars.

Nope. Not true in the fucking slightest.

What actually happened was General Motors, Firestone Tires, and Standard Oil formed a syndicate together. Since GM had a lot of success manufacturing buses, they figured they could make a shitload of money by working together and selling fully-made, fully-furnished, fully-fuelled buses to various councils and municipalities. The way they probably presented it was something along the lines of "you can make us very rich and we can make you very rich by getting rid of your hard-to-maintain boxcars and selling you these buses which we'll maintain for you", and if you were a local government from the era struggling to maintain your public transport infrastructure or simply didn't like how much it cost you, the decision was a no-brainer.

The bughive has somehow twisted this into meanies representing Big Oil pressuring governments into removing boxcars so that personal transport could be foisted upon the population and make them very rich. The fact of the matter is cars didn't factor into it at any point. It was to sell buses fuelled on Standard Oil and running on Firestone tires. Break any part of that syndicate by driving a Ford on Goodyear tires and fuelled at Unocal 76, and the syndicate didn't get your money.

Most people who drove their own cars probably weren't the type of people to have used the boxcars to begin with, and wouldn't use buses either.

If we're on the subject of cars, there are people who try to argue that the electric car was killed by evil car manufacturers and big oil, rather than them being a technological dead end that even a century later can barely compete with the convenience of half a century old car.

 

[Corpun]

If we're on the subject of cars, there are people who try to argue that the electric car was killed by evil car manufacturers and big oil, rather than them being a technological dead end that even a century later can barely compete with the convenience of half a century old car.

Electric Vehicles are somehow the future however even though most of them are ticking time bombs with the amount of lithium in the batteries.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

there are people who try to argue that the electric car was killed by evil car manufacturers and big oil

Electric Vehicles are somehow the future

I used to believe that because I believed the narrative that gasoline cars are "primitive" and electric cars are "the future", and Big Oil was holding the electric car back. When in reality, charging electric cars can have the same environmental impact as gas ones. And of course, electrics are more expensive to maintain than gas ones.

A Canadian Tesla owner managed to drive 1 million miles in his 2013 Tesla Model S. However, it required 4 rear motor, and 3 battery replacements. [...] Combine that with the $19K price tag for each replacement battery, as well as the replacement motors, means that this guy spend $100K or more, just to keep this Model S running.

Not to mention gasoline cars can still outperform electric.

Any real future without fossil fuels could lie in "biofuel", since that seems to have similar energy density to gasoline.

(or maybe hydrogen fuel cells)

 

[Skitarii]

Rome bad, their lions ate 6 gorillion ((cristians)) so subverting them then demonizing their native culture was good!

Rome bad

 

[Corpun]

I used to believe that because I believed the narrative that gasoline cars are "primitive" and electric cars are "the future", and Big Oil was holding the electric car back. When in reality, charging electric cars can have the same environmental impact as gas ones. And of course, electrics are more expensive to maintain than gas ones.

Not to mention the environmental impact of mining for the shit to make their batteries and everything. Environmentalists are useful idiots at worst and downright idiotic at best.

 

[Wood]

(or maybe hydrogen fuel cells)

We see that you liked: Being in a lithium fire.
Based on your preferences you might also like: Putting a 10000psi hydrogen tank in your car.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Based on your preferences you might also like: Putting a 10000psi hydrogen tank in your car.

Yeah maybe that's not such a good idea.

(I can see why the hype in the '00s faded away.)

 

[Lord High Admiral Spire]

Almost anything related to Abraham Lincoln. I will preface this by saying that no, I'm not a butthurt lost causer, and yes, the South was largely fighting to keep slavery legal. This isn't about the Civil War, but about how Lincoln is portrayed today vs who he actually was.

Lincoln is used as a tool to teach modern 21st century values, and his role is quasi-religious. Slavery is treated like America's original sin, and Lincoln died to free us from that sin. There's a narrative that Lincoln spent his life opposing slavery on humanitarian grounds and that he was in favor of racial equality. That narrative is largely fictional.

The real Lincoln was a corporate railroad lawyer before entering politics. He openly said his primary motive in the Civil War was keeping the Union together, (this quote is commonly repeated by lost causers to claim the Civil War wasn't about slavery), and in the same quote said that he didn't particularly care about slavery beyond how it would affect American unity. He also considered whites to be superior and blacks to be inferiors, believed that equality wasn't possible, and integration was undesireable, and because of this wanted to send the freed slaves back to Africa. In line with this, his oposition to slavery (less staunch than often claimed) was less motiviated by humaitarianism and more motivated by a desire to protect the economic interests of ‘Free White Labour’. If you want to get a bit politispergy, he had one of the largest paramilitary organizations in America’s history(The Wide Awakes), who jailed journalists for reporting negative things.

THAT Lincoln, the man who made Trump look like a respecter of his critics, the man would be considered horrifically racist by today's standards, is so far away from the "Great Emancipator" Lincoln presented in the modern narrative, its absurd. The whitewashing of Lincoln is imo one of the best examples of revisionism in American history.

Like I said, I'm not a lost causer and the Confederacy had plenty of grounds for crticism, to put it mildly. That doesn't justify Lincoln being deified and protrayed in popular consciousness as a figure that he never was in reality.

Read "Father Abraham: Lincoln's Relentless Struggle to End Slavery" by Richard Striner. It addresses a lot of what you say here. He was unequivocally opposed to slavery morally, at the very least, and stated it long before he became president. Lincoln might not have wanted an immediate emancipation, but he was absolutely committed to slavery's extinction:

March 1, 1859: Speech at Chicago, Illinois

I do not wish to be misunderstood upon this subject of slavery in this country. I suppose it may long exist, and perhaps the best way for it to come to an end peaceably is for it to exist for a length of time. But I say that the spread and strengthening and perpetuation of it is an entirely different proposition. There we should in every way resist it as a wrong, treating it as a wrong, with the fixed idea that it must and will come to an end.

The reason he considered equality impossible is because America, both North and South, was racist as hell, and even abolitionists were not necessarily pro-black suffrage. The whole reason why John Wilkes Booth shot him is because he was willing to give intelligent blacks and soldiers the vote.

To persuade radicals that he took seriously their concerns that abolishing slavery was not enough and that more needed to be done, Lincoln publicly embraced limited black suffrage:

“It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers. Still the question is not whether the Louisiana government, as it stands, is quite all that is desirable. The question is, ‘Will it be wiser to take it as it is, and help to improve it; or to reject, and disperse it?’ ‘Can Louisiana be brought into proper practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining, or by discarding her new State government?’”

Lincoln had previously supported black suffrage in a private letter to Louisiana’s Governor Michael Hahn written in March 1864. Now he publicly endorsed the step. John Wilkes Booth was among the crowd who listened to Lincoln’s address. Hearing the call for limited black suffrage, Booth declared “that is the last speech he will ever make.” A conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln was already afoot. But Lincoln’s speech on 11 April, and his call for black suffrage, led to the tragic event of 14 April when Booth made good on his word.

The quote where Lincoln talks about not desiring equality stems from his opponent Stephen A. Douglas trying to bait him into saying that he supported racial equality, precisely because it would alienate him from the majority of abolitionist northerners, who were incredibly racist.

Here's the entire quote where Lincoln says his main aim isn't to destroy slavery:

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. 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; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.

The colonization of blacks abroad was most likely a political move done to assuage the fears of racist white Northerners in response to slaves freeing to Northern lines, He put on a show of supporting it, because it's literally a politician's job to be deceptive. While Congress appropriated $600,000 for colonizing blacks, less than 7 percent was actually used for it.

Here's a good article discussing it.

After his visit to the White House, Frederick Douglass said of Lincoln: “I was impressed with his entire freedom from popular prejudice against the colored race.”

And in his eulogy for Lincoln:

Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model. In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a white man.
[...] Any man can say things that are true of Abraham Lincoln, but no man can say anything that is new of Abraham Lincoln. His personal traits and public acts are better known to the American people than are those of any other man of his age. He was a mystery to no man who saw him and heard him. Though high in position, the humblest could approach him and feel at home in his presence. Though deep, he was transparent; though strong, he was gentle; though decided and pronounced in his convictions, he was tolerant towards those who differed from him, and patient under reproaches.
[...] I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen.
Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless.[...] Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined.

Was he perfect? No. Was he racist? Quite possibly so. But so was just about everyone in the 1800s, apart from fringe radicals.

On a separate note, I think the worst case of historical revisionism is the idea that religion is the root of all the world's evil, when it's directly responsible for less than 7 percent of all wars, and less than a century of rule by atheist governments saw mass murders that make the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition and St. Bartholomew's Day massacre combined look like a kindergarten playground scuffle.

 

[El Gato Grande]

Not so much a revision, but more a lack of perspective:

Not enough people appreciate how bloody and massive the eastern and Chinese fronts were in ww2.

Talking about 80% of German casualties being on the eastern front and the like is common in ww2 circles, but few come close to appreciating the scale. Both sides mobilized millions upon millions of men in a total war spanning hundreds of miles and massive battles on a scale not seen in any other conflict, in a brutal ideological conflict in which the winners would massacre the losers. The USSR lost 13-14% of its entire population, with many more wounded for life. The reason why Russians today have so much reverence regarding their ww2 vets is because it was truly an apocalyptic conflict in which they staved off an enemy that tried to genocide them. Pop WW2 history doesn’t truly grasp this, and is full of meme-tier depictions about tiger tanks, le Russian winter and “hurr durr Soviets dumb so germans mow them down and lose only because they ran out of bullets”

Ignorance on the Chinese theater is 10 times worse. It started in 1937, Japan fielded most of its army to fight them, both sides had huge troop numbers, and millions of civilians and soldiers died, and many of the worst war crimes happened there—yet you hardly hear about it. The KMT lost millions of men trying to defend their country against an enemy that would brag about murdering your civilians in newspapers and drop bioweapons on your cities for shits and giggles, suffered immensely from lack of industry and internal power games, only to slip immediately into a civil war where the people who did 10% of the fighting took advantage of their weakened state, defeated them, and proceeded to write themselves as the sole resistors of the Japanese. If you like reading about scorched earth tactics and infantrymen and civilians alike dying horribly the Second-Sino-Japanese war is your oyster.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Probably the complete lack of mention of the Barbary slave trade in Muttmurican education. It's particularly funny because it's even briefly mentioned in the very opening of the Marine Corps hymn, so you know a bunch of proud mutts have encountered it, but never took the time to actually look into it. Other than that, probably the veneration of the great ejaculator Abraham Lincoln as anything more than a petty dictator who got (righteously) killed before he was able to solidify full control. The dude no shit put down by military force a rebellion by about a third of the US population, completely altered the form of government in the US from a confederation of sovereign states to the current centralized government and then dumb mutts, later on, put his statue in a stony throne for it all while bitching about the kings of old being tyrannical oppressors.

Other than that, probably the way the US revolution is presented. The US revolution is always presented as some kind of struggle against the "tyrannical kings," but that's just silly if you examine the history with even a slightly objective lens. Firstly, King George the 3rd was very limited in his actual authority by the time of the US revolution. By 1650 the British Parliament was by far the most dominant force in the UK (they'd actually executed a king by this point against the will of the population) and absolutely had more reason to keep the US out of parliament than what King George III did since a US entry into parliament might have actually helped him by dividing the parliamentary factions. So it was really a war between a want-to-be republic and a republic that was only on paper, not a republic. Said want-to-be republic was also backed by a French King, who said want-to-be republic later betrayed in favor of a bunch of violent criminals who established one of the most dystopian regimes in history.

Edit:
Also, how many uprisings did the US put down by military force right after being established?
View attachment 3512611
Uncle Schlomo would never have fucked over a bunch of veterans of the revolution to the point of causing them to fight back and then genocided them for it right? That would have set a pattern of behavior, wouldn't it?

Who gives a shit about the Barbary slave trade? What relevance does it have to American history or life beyond one tiny overseas intervention?

I do dislike Americans for thinking they invented everything (like nobody had constitutions, representative government, legislatures, or federalism before the USA).

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Not so much a revision, but more a lack of perspective:

Not enough people appreciate how bloody and massive the eastern and Chinese fronts were in ww2.

Talking about 80% of German casualties being on the eastern front and the like is common in ww2 circles, but few come close to appreciating the scale. Both sides mobilized millions upon millions of men in a total war spanning hundreds of miles and massive battles on a scale not seen in any other conflict, in a brutal ideological conflict in which the winners would massacre the losers. The USSR lost 13-14% of its entire population, with many more wounded for life. The reason why Russians today have so much reverence regarding their ww2 vets is because it was truly an apocalyptic conflict in which they staved off an enemy that tried to genocide them. Pop WW2 history doesn’t truly grasp this, and is full of meme-tier depictions about tiger tanks, le Russian winter and “hurr durr Soviets dumb so germans mow them down and lose only because they ran out of bullets”

Ignorance on the Chinese theater is 10 times worse. It started in 1937, Japan fielded most of its army to fight them, both sides had huge troop numbers, and millions of civilians and soldiers died, and many of the worst war crimes happened there—yet you hardly hear about it. The KMT lost millions of men trying to defend their country against an enemy that would brag about murdering your civilians in newspapers and drop bioweapons on your cities for shits and giggles, suffered immensely from lack of industry and internal power games, only to slip immediately into a civil war where the people who did 10% of the fighting took advantage of their weakened state, defeated them, and proceeded to write themselves as the sole resistors of the Japanese. If you like reading about scorched earth tactics and infantrymen and civilians alike dying horribly the Second-Sino-Japanese war is your oyster.

Ever read Shanghai: Stalingrad on the Yangtze?

I haven't, but it's on my list whenever I can get around to it.


In fact, you've turned me on to some huge revisionism, can't believe I didn't think of this one.

THE MYTH OF THE COMMUNIST PARTISAN
I was taught in school, and saw in many other places, claims that the Communist partisans (in China, France, Yugoslavia, etc.) did everything while the Rightists (Mihailovich, Kuomintang, etc.) did nothing.

Long story short, it turns out this is age-old Leftist projection, because in reality the Communists spent most of their time sitting on their asses shooting at each other and their Rightist "allies," while the Rightists did everything. The reason historians ended up shilling the Communists is that the Communists in the State Department would straight up lie in all their reports to get more aid to Tito and Mao. It is one of the greatest injustices I've seen in misapplied credit.

 

[Shidoen]

Treating the confederate generals like shit despite their previous dutiful service to the Union but playing up Sherman as some kind of martyr for burning Atlanta.

 

[Elbow Greased Strength]

Treating the confederate generals like shit despite their previous dutiful service to the Union but playing up Sherman as some kind of martyr for burning Atlanta.

It's also dumb because national reconciliation after the War basically ended the sectarian conflict. Lee and Jackson were American icons just like Grant and Sherman.

I feel like anyone who is assmad about something that happened 160 years ago (many of whom were not even in this country at the time, myself included) need to take a step back and consider what they are doing with their lives.

 

[Shidoen]

It's also dumb because national reconciliation after the War basically ended the sectarian conflict. Lee and Jackson were American icons just like Grant and Sherman.

I feel like anyone who is assmad about something that happened 160 years ago (many of whom were not even in this country at the time, myself included) need to take a step back and consider what they are doing with their lives.

That’s why I proudly fly both colors, as both helped changed our nation either way. No political party or spectrum shall control what both of those nations have provided.