History is Written by the Victors
and
... the microbes will have the last word

Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters.
African Proverb

Napoleon once said, "What is history, but a fable agreed upon?”
(paraphrasing ~François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694–1778), "Jeannot et Colin”)

People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them.
James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

The obscurest epoch is today.
Robert Louis Stevenson, Across the Plains

Our current history is being being written by the corporations...the victors of our social struggle. A series of essays by arendt about Ken Burn's presentation of the history of the Vietnam War and Chris Hedges interview with a historian prompted my thoughts about history this week. No wonder we can't understand the past...we don't understand the present. Interpretation of both present and past is bias no matter how well done. But there are good efforts like Howard Zinn http://www.howardzinn.org/
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/zinnapeopleshistory.html

Eric Foner, historian and author of “Battles for Freedom: The Use and Abuse of American History” discusses the role of the historian and the lie of omission with Chris Hedges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX0ar575Qq0 (27 min)

Propaganda
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” ― George Orwell

The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
Mark Twain, Following the Equator

A history in which every particular incident may be true may on the whole be false.
Thomas Babington Macaulay

Most history is guessing, and the rest is prejudice.
Will and Ariel Durant, Our Oriental Heritage

Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.
H.L. Mencken

The Vietnam special on PBS
John Pilger takes on the corporate sell out series.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/killing-american-way/
Additional views
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/09/21/reclaiming-truth-about-vie...

Chris Hedges explains how progressive voices are sidelined and silenced
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-silencing-of-dissent/

History is a very tricky thing. To begin with you can't get it mixed up with the past. The past actually happened, but history is only what someone wrote down.
A. Whitney Brown, The Big Picture

If an historian were to relate truthfully all the crimes, weaknesses and disorders of mankind, his readers would take his work for satire rather than for history.
Pierre Bayle, Historical and Critical Dictionary

Isn't it amazing the way the future succeeds in creating an appropriate past?
John Leonard

The memories of men are too frail a thread to hang history from.
John Still, The Jungle Tide

Elections and Politics

Gerrymandering case comes up in the supreme court this week.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/future-partisan-gerrymandering-hinges-...

Election fraud is certain without reform.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/reform-corrupted-u-s-electoral-system/

The former president is reportedly raking in $400,000 per speech to massive financial firms
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/09/18/after-failing-prosecute-ban...

Last weekend September 16-17 a major national gathering was held in Washington, D.C. called the People's Congress of Resistance, a broad and diverse coalition of organizers and community leaders formed to build the class-struggle wing of the anti-Trump movement. Abby Martin interviews participants (17 min). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy01SAjTtjM

Lee Camp sits down with Jimmy Dore to talk the viability of the of the Draft Bernie movement and the fraudulent Democrats. (33 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRdO6jAd2E4

Economics

Nearly three-fourths (71 percent) of the world’s population is poor, living on $10 a day or less, and 11 percent (767 million people, including 385 million children) live in what the World Bank calls “extreme poverty” (less than a $1.90 a day). Meanwhile, Oxfam reliably reports that, surreal as it sounds, the world’s eight richest people possess among themselves as much wealth as the poorest half of the entire human race
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/capitalism-the-nightmare/

Intecepted podcast this week features Gary Rivlin discussing Government Sacs, Cuban-Jamaican poet Aja Monet, and Alice Speri who discusses her article called, “Israel Security Forces Are Training American Cops Despite History of Rights Abuses.” (60 min and text)
https://theintercept.com/2017/09/20/intercepted-podcast-merican-psycho/
https://theintercept.com/2017/09/17/goldman-sachs-gary-cohn-donald-trump...

Unicorns and rainbows are descriptions of public service funding, but military funding is no problem. The $80B hike in the imperial military budget is more than enough for free college!
https://theintercept.com/2017/09/18/the-senates-military-spending-increa...

Just look into the new military budget...Hundreds of millions for Israeli missiles and Ukrainian troops’ medical care, at U.S. taxpayers’ expense.
http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/military-spending-israel-ukraine

Killing more people means killing social programs.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/09/19/us-says-no-money-social-pro...

Healthcare or the lack thereof looms ahead this week

No problem increasing the military budget, but pay for healthcare???? (16 min or text)
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20036:Congress-Spars-on-Healthcare%2C-Un...

Jimmy Dore on McCain saving the ACA. (6 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVOlFrxcEGA

Health care is a states rights issue says Lindsay, but they want to ban the rights of state to have single payer!
https://theintercept.com/2017/09/19/so-much-for-states-rights-gop-senato...

Naomi Klien ...single payer is the path forward (video and text)
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/9/18/no_is_not_enough_naomi_klein

Environment

“Study the past if you would define the future.”
― Confucius

San Francisco and Oakland charge that fossil fuel companies "stole a page from the Big Tobacco playbook" with misleading campaigns and should pay for damage from rising seas
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/09/21/first-two-major-cities-sue-...

Now T-rump is after Arctic drilling. No wonder climate is collapsing (16 min and text)
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20050:After-Maria-%27Obliterates%27-Puer...

Sadly we can expect stronger storms.
http://therealnews.com/t2/component/content/article/695-nasa/3321-in-a-w...

Koch brothers war on Climate (32 min and text)
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:19992:TRNN-SPECIAL%3A-Trump%2C-The-Koch-...

Is the military prepared for climate chaos? (14 min and text)
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=767&...

Europe may water down the Paris agreement to appease T-rump. Naomi Klein (vid and text)
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/9/18/naomi_klein_warns_europe_may_agree
Gary Cohn, said Monday the U.S. would withdraw from the landmark 2015 Paris climate accord as planned. (video and text)
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/9/21/trump_admin_doubles_down_on_plans

Applying the shock doctrine after the hurricanes (more from Naomi) (video and text)
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/9/18/naomi_klein_we_are_seeing_the

As gjohnsit posted Puerto Rico is devastated
https://caucus99percent.com/content/puerto-rico-has-been-absolutely-deva...

Earthquakes too (poor Mexico) (video and text)
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/9/20/hundreds_dead_in_mexico_after_ear...

War and Peace

Some write a narrative of wars and feats,
Of heroes little known, and call the rant
A history.
William Cowper, The Task, The Garden

The entire history of mankind is, in any case, nothing but a prolonged fight to the death for the conquest of universal prestige and absolute power.
Albert Camus, The Rebel

Whose game was empires and whose stakes were thrones,
Whose table earth, whose dice were human bones.
George Gordon, Lord Byron, "The Age of Bronze"

Donald Trump is addicted to violence. It is the principal force that shapes his language, politics and policies. He revels in a public discourse that threatens, humiliates, bullies and inflicts violence.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/donald-trumps-addiction-violence/

Col. Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, talks about Trump's speech before the UN General Assembly and explains why Ambassador Nikki Haley's remarks on the Iran nuclear deal scare him (22 min or text)
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=767&...

Nice interview with Jeffery Sachs about T-rumps aggression (video and text)
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/9/21/jeff_sachs_warns_nuclear_war_is
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/9/21/economist_jeff_sachs_americans_wh...

Make everyone into police. Axon, the world’s largest vendor of police-worn body cameras, is moving into the business of capturing video taken by the public.
https://theintercept.com/2017/09/21/taser-wants-to-build-an-army-of-smar...

Maybe we can work toward peace?

Bernie's speech on foreign policy was certainly a step in the right direction.
https://theintercept.com/2017/09/22/bernie-sanders-interview-foreign-pol...
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/09/21/worlds-common-humanity-and...
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20055:After-Pushing-Democrats-Left%2C-Be... (14 min and text)

Amid tensions over North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests, 51 countries have signed the world’s first legally binding treaty banning nuclear weapons (video and text)
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/9/22/amid_tensions_with_north_korea_51

Study War No More is a learning tool developed and produced by World Beyond War in partnership with the Global Campaign for Peace Education. It provides guided inquiries for students and citizens to understand the nature of “the war system” and the possibilities for its transformation to an authentic “global security system” pursued via peaceful means.
http://globalsecurity.worldbeyondwar.org/

Can we make progress? Jim Hightower tells the story of Colorado Springs.
http://www.alternet.org/activism/denver-populist-victories-colorado

Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all: the conscientious historian will correct these defects. ~Herodotus, The History of Herodotus

“History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

When I started writing and compiling the weekly I soon learned how easy it is to control the narrative from the drivers seat. I try to present authentic sources to support ideas. Debate continues on Burn's Vietnam series in part because so many of us lived through those years. We come to the table with our own understandings, and we are blind to our own bias. Jimmy Dore does a great job pointing out white privilege in this clip about a Comey protest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw--THAPQUw (20 min)

And this is what I appreciate about our little community here at C99. The breadth of insights, the great news coverage on an almost daily basis by gjohn and joe, and interesting, cordial exchanges among us all... it all makes this site special. I'm sure jtc would appreciate a contribution (if you can swing it) to keep our boat afloat. Have a great Sunday!