Open Thread - 12-15-23 - To the Victor Belong the Spoils
The history of mankind is basically a timeline of war, from the first empires to the present. Many great civilizations, cultures, histories and knowledge down through the centuries have been lost to war. There are many examples of the victors erasing a peoples existence and replacing it with their concept of national identity. For example, The Old Testament is full of war, genocide and slaughter. History books are chronicles of war with intermittent smatterings of peace and prosperity. How much knowledge has been lost to the scourge of war? We will never know what the world has missed or how different it may have been because of the antiquities that were conquered and lost forever.
If the victor rewrites history in its favor, how can we trust anything that has been handed down to us, considering the possibility that the other side of the story may have been lost or altered for all of posterity? How much knowledge has been lost due to war, and the rewriting of history. The Library of Alexandria is just one example of ancient histories and knowledge lost to conflict. What knowledge and wisdom was lost forever in that fire of conflict? We'll never know.
Attribution: Sanjiv Banga
Larger image at Pexels Creative Commons
We are products of our education from birth onward. Sensory perception as babies, parental inputs, scholastic indoctrination, written works, the media, and interaction with other people form our world view and our sense of reality. And I would posit that history books and religion make up the majority of our perceived cultural existence. These perceptions are all too vulnerable to censorship and propaganda, the age old tools of power and control. They've been used to change history and how we view it, at the expense of the real or entire story.
Censorship and propaganda as a means of control certainly aren't modern phenomena, they've surely been around at least since the hunter gatherers became agrarian and the early priests realized the power and utility of metaphysical belief systems. The spoken word, and then the written word, were used to sway and deliver minds to the altar of contemporaneous power and control. Censorship and propaganda is so pervasive today, how would this 21st century time period be viewed 1,000 years from now and how does that relate to the way we look back at our history? Why would that not be considered just a continuance of our long history of the victors seizing the spoils and new cultures built upon old cultures, either by force or deception?
The utter scope of modern censorship, propaganda, and the rewriting of history has caused myself to question it all, even back to the dawn of man. Questions that, when one looks from a different point of view, casts a very different shadow on our past. Today we witness words and history being rewritten in real time. Old mores are being dismantled upending the fabric of some societies. Even certain science, which is predicated on empirical evidence and debate that is subject to change when the evidence is proven incorrect, has been declared as settled. How do we resolve the truth with the ever present possibility of it being altered.
If today we are suspicious and distrustful of censorship and propaganda, who's to say that we can trust any past history or histories. We only hear the victor's side, mostly. The loser's side is rewritten, or obliterated.
Can we trust anything we've been taught? One can't escape the historical motive that it all was meant to control mankind, as written by the victors.
When a man dies a library dies with him. ~Unknown
Comments
Good morning Free Rangers...
Trust nothing, question everything.
Good morning...
History is a story. Funny how we define our background in terms of war. Round and round on the endless loop of conflict. Too bad we can't get off the merry-go-round.
No matter, let's all have a great weekend despite the horrors around us. Onward through the fog...
Thanks for the OT!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good morning Lo...
perhaps if some of the more peaceful peoples had not been vanquished in war and their histories rewritten, then the doctrine of war may not be so prevalent. Perhaps we're not so removed from the animal kingdom after all, as we've always deluded ourselves.
Give peace a chance.
Rain here today and then a sunny and peaceful (I hope) weekend in the 60s.
Billionaires are so kewl and bitchen
“The loyal Left cannot act decisively. Their devotion to the system is a built-in kill switch limiting dissent.” - Richard Moser
Corruption and blackmail...
the way of the billionaire parasite class. Especially hedge fund billionaires who make huge sums of money by doing nothing other than using other people's money. They then use those billions to control, censor, and blackmail politicians and those that may expose them for the worthless parasites that they are.
We are owned and controlled not by politicians that are elected to represent us, but by an insidious cabal who prey upon the weaknesses of those politicians and those that have too much money for their own good.
The censorship and divide and conquer tactics used against us are laid bare.
No wonder Epstein's list is kept secret.
Ola amigos
Hi all, Hey JtC!
Hope its good all over the place out there.
To the victor goes the most important spoil, the writing of the history about what happened.
'Twas a rude awakening to find out I got all those A's in History fer nuthin'. Still trying to unlearn some of that awful programming.
We certainly were not taught the truth about our treatment of the native peoples here, or in say Hawai'i, or, heck, pick any place where we follied.
Another one we missed was who really was of key importantce in crushing the Nazis in WWII.
Now they want us to believe the vaxes are safe and work, Russia blew up its own pipeline, and Biden will save us and lead us into the future. If we judge by current events, I see no reason to blindly trust ANYthing they EVER said. Today multiple major media outlets are claiming the Russian Army has lost 87% (CNN) to almost 90% (WSJ) of its forces.
Yet social media needs censoring to control misinformation? What about the alleged news !?!?!?!?
Saw Israel recently took out a library or bookstore in Gaza with many precious books. They seem mighty particular about what history they want out there. Sure was important to get rid of that place of books.
Questions are the answer.
Have great ones all!
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
Howdy dysto...
the rewriting of history currently being done in plain sight and how it's been done throughout history is the premise of this piece. They don't even wait for a few years after the fact to whitewash it anymore. If you notice it then you're racist, xenophobe with terrorist supporting tendencies and you need to STFU.
Zinn's A People's History of the United States is a good place to start the deprogramming, and of course it helps to question everything. Can we really trust what we've been taught?
Things are well here in East Texas, we're going to get some rain this afternoon and evening. I want to confirm your recent observations about the birds missing in action, I see it here as well. I think you may be right in your suggestion that the drought is causing it. We basically have some sparrows, chickadees, titmouse and the occasional cardinal and bluebirds. But all in all the numbers seem to be way down.
Thanks for stopping in.
Zinn's pople's History can be downloaded free
Here for instance, a page at a time, https://files.libcom.org/files/A%20People%27s%20History%20of%20the%20Uni..., or
The internet archive all at once https://archive.org/details/pdfy-otanUZGGGcnDgfr7 and a few other places too
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Thanks...
old buddy.
Russia never got mentioned
in my classes at college as the ass kicker of Hitler. Oh...Custer was brave...not a crook, not an idiot. Slavery was not mentioned as a main cause of the Texas revolution against Mexico, and Great Britain outlawing the slave trade to its' country and colonies just before that first shot was fired was not mentioned. A coincidence, called revisionist history to connect it to the Revolution. Ok, then.
Cheap labor is a driving force for war. Always was, still is, always will be.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
You have to be careful with assertions like that,
because the American Revolution DID have more than one cause, and the Colonies were in unrest well before Britain decided to end the slave trade. It may have been a "last straw", particularly for the southern Colonies, but all 13 were already thoroughly annoyed by Britain's attempts to recoup the costs of the Seven Years War (French and Indian War over here, and it lasted nine years) by onerous taxation measures.
The Stamp Act was passed in 1765. Opposition was immediate and vociferous. It was repealed the next year (due to the opposition and refusal to cooperate) but promptly replaced by a series of taxes on various items, including tea....
The "Boston Massacre" (a major PR blunder by the British) took place on March 5, 1770.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
What you call the last straw
is what I call the trigger. The build up was there, but might never have turned to a revolution but for slavery.
There is a reluctance of Americans to research, or entertain this fact because it is hideous to think we would kill for slavery and that our great and exceptional country protected it to the death. Well, we did it twice. Being pissed at The Stamp Act is righteous, though, and revenge for the Boston Massacre is righteous.
I was also taught the Civil War was an economics system dispute between agrarian and industrial sectors. The basis for the profit of agrarians was slave labor, of course, but that is just difficult to teach that to integrated universities without causing hurt fee fees.
JtC points out we have lost unfathomable history post-war. Well, we have plenty of archived evidence regarding the Revolution. We won it. Hard to think of first person evidence, well-preserved, as revisionist.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
A more obvious trigger was the tea tax
and Britain's stealth attempt to collect it via heavily discounted East India Company tea. That set off the Boston Tea Party (and a heavy-handed clampdown by the British Government), and polite but firm refusals of the cargo in several other port cities. (If there was an underhanded motive here, it would be tea smugglers not wanting to be undercut by cheaper legal tea.)
It was always Boston taking the lead in the protests, and Boston (and the rest of Massachusetts) that took the brunt of British government reprisals. So naturally the Revolution started in the Boston area, and the rest of the Colonies, having figured they must stand together or be crushed separately, rallied in support.
There was a class issue involved, but it did not directly have to do with slavery. The very rich and government-connected, for the most part, were not that unhappy with the situation, even when the British government's hand got heavy - the government was just "keeping (or restoring) order", to them. The middle and lower classes, on the other hand, saw government encroachment as offensively objectionable and felt it their duty to resist as much as possible. (John Hancock was a "class traitor", having been seduced to the resistance by Samuel Adams' persuasion - Adams was "failed middle class", unlike his solidly and comfortably middle-class cousin John.)
Why Boston? It was the largest and most populous city in New England - or in all 13 Colonies, bar possibly New York City, and New England already had a long tradition of town meetings arranging local matters to local satisfaction. Being told what to do by a government 3000 miles away and completely out of touch with their on-the-ground realities was just not going to fly, nohow.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
The history we were taught, both world and American
turns out to be bunk. Just glad that we now have alternative means to figure out
some of the truth behind these 'stories'. Nothing is as advertised. Question everything
claimed by the media. There is a commenter on another site who likes to cite
#Opposite as an explanation for the current jagged formulations made up by the
mouthpieces. Whatever is promoted tends to be the #Opposite of reality.
Thanks for your critical insights.
question everything
Heh...
I like that, #Opposite. Yin and yang, parallel universes and glad handing baby kissing politicians that promise everything and do just the opposite when elected.
That commenter is on to something.
A variant of the BIg Lie, whatever you are doing,
accuse your enemy of doing.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Freedom of the press Israeli style!
I doubt that he was Hamas!
Yeah buddy, free to express their hate
with a gun in their hands.
When does this madness stop, Zion Brandon?
question everything
Tough guys...
with guns in their hands. That will change if/when the US has a financial collapse. Kharma's a bitch.
Studying for my degree in US history,
we students were discouraged from researching military history. We were told to stick with economic, social, and political history. If you want military history, sign up with the military, study at their academies.
At the time, the Viet Nam war was ongoing. After it ended, while I was still in college, the last thing anybody wanted to talk about was war with a class full of PTSD afflicted vets. So, we would study years up to war starting, pick up with study the years right after the wars' ends. Dots were never really connected.
To the victor go the spoils should continue with "after all, why else wage war?"
Not taught. Figured it out on my own.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
I studied tons of military history as a hobby. One thing one
quickly learns is how slow to learn and backwards the various national militaries have been and are, especially those higher up in the chain of command. For instance, B.H. Liddell Hart struggled for years to try to get the Brits to adopt the tactics, theories, ideas and mind set that became adopted by Germany and known as Blitzkrieg, but no takers, before that, the obvious lessons from the US Civil War, the Boer War, the Russo-Japanese war, etc. were learned by nobody and thus WWI was the futile bloodbath that it was.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
The tactics are often fascinating.
War on foot. War on horseback. The dramatic change from fighting in good weather, face to face, stopping when it rained or got dark, transformed in our Revolutionary War. We hid behind trees, became a sniper army, seeing how well it worked for the Natives.
We adopted what we considered good from the natives, buried as much of the rest of their history and culture as possible. You must wonder if anyone can trust our version of their history, given the destruction of the 100 Years War.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
The Vietnam War...
caused me to question the status quo at an early age. The alternative media at that time were underground newspapers and magazines, they taught the other side of the story. Luckily there was a head shop run by a Nam Vet in the small town I lived in so I kept current with The Chicago Seed.
You figured right. Having the possibility of getting drafted was my Hallelujah moment.
just got a text
will you vote for Biden?
Delete. gotta be kidding me
anybody in their right mind
want more of the failed policies
of dementia Joe?
grasping at straws
camels back is busted
question everything
What we call ‘History’ has a very short shelf life,
whose purpose seems to be an attempt to affirm our collective understanding at a certain point in time as significant and meaningful, while largely ignoring the importance of the ‘essential’ qualities life offers each of us.
The traces of bygone human civilizations that lie below the ocean, orders of magnitude older than all of our ‘recorded history’, imply a cyclical ebb and flow of human activity on this planet. History writers hubris requires that these ancient traces are either ignored or denigrated as the work of ‘primitives’. Surely humanity’s current efforts far surpass all that preceded!
The procession of the rise and fall of a long series of civilizations evokes, on another scale, the birth-life-death of each individual. Questions arise. The search for meaning perhaps begins in earnest! Or not.
(Thank you JtC, for inseminating this thought provoking OT thread!)
“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024
Thanks ovals...
I'm reminded of a theory I ran across many years ago that stated mankind has gone through several cycles (4, I think) of civilization birth and death. The theory is that mankind flourished and then for whatever reasons died out, only to start the process over again, due to nuclear war, famine, cataclysm, or whatever, with hundreds of thousands of years between each cycle.
I can't remember the author of that theory and can't find it in a search engine, but I do recall considering it was woo woo material and I dismissed it.
Now I wonder.
I haven't seen anything as wild as *that*, but
social cycle theory has been popular (and popularized) for quite some time now.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
War and militarism are not the only subjects of history
In fact, these may be the most boring subjects of all.
I have been reading history books for the last 40 years and have spent most of that time and energy reading up on the progress of tools and manufacturing techniques. Lots more progress in this area than in whatever the warmongers are up to.
So true Jonathan...
perhaps I was painting with too wide a brush.
I noticed in your profile that you are an inventor. An essay about your inventions would be awesome addition to c99.