Yes It’s True: Our collapse is due to no respect for history

I suppose the most bitter pill I ever had to swallow in my lifetime was the notion that history is not important, that it’s just stories about dead people.

“Yesterday’s gone. Yesterday’s gone.” — Fleetwood Mac.

“The past is over and done.”

When I was in college, many friends and acquaintances asked me why I majored in history, “What good is history?” And they told me the only thing history could do for me in the job market was become a teacher of the subject.

Nevertheless, I persevered and these detractors were wrong. Because of my interest in and study of history I could become a community journalist. Of course, these days that discipline is dying at the altar of manufactured public relations.

After I graduated from college, I was unable to land a job as a full-time history teacher. I nearly always was touched out by jocks who were physical education majors and group social studies minors. So I was passed over because I didn’t have coaching credentials.

It should be no secret that a lot of history teachers traditionally have been coaches who seem to have a lot more interest in their sports teams than in young people learning about their country’s and world’s past. Therefore, too many of them were able only to stay one textbook chapter ahead of the kids and pass out standardized tests.

History has been the subject that hasn’t gotten a lot of respect. It’s been dissed because too often it’s boring and places a premium on dates and names of people who passed on long ago.

This is why I bristle when so many insist we “never forget” 9/11. I don’t think anyone will, but the better question is, “What have we learned from 9/11?” As the Fugs sang so long ago, “Nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing!”

It happened less than 20 years ago, but I have learned first hand that most Americans do not know not one single Iraqi was involved in the 9/11 attacks. It even rears its ugly head in Peter Meijer’s ad for Congress, touting him for fighting terrorists in Iraq. They didn’t attack us, we attacked them, and they were defending their homeland against the likes of Meijer.

When I was a bottom feeder substitute teacher, I never received the correct response from students when I asked how many Iraqis were among those 19 nuts who hit the Twin Towers. Zero.

I saw a video recently of a roving reporter asking young people basic questions about Independence Day, when it first happened and why it is celebrated. Most did not know, not because they were ignorant, but because they’ve been told it’s forgettable.

I have examined every war the United States has been involved in since World War II, none of which we’ve won (except Grenada), and it’s painfully clear we’ve ignored the lessons of history that you won’t be successful in military excursions far away invading lands and peoples where you are not welcome. Particularly if you don’t live there. Look at England, circa 1776-1783.

In Iraq, we were not “greeted as liberators,” as then Vice President Dick Cheney promised. And we ignored the history of Afghanistan, long believed to be the land where empires go to die. Look up the Soviet Union and even Alexander the Great.

It a little more than 80 years ago, Adolf Hitler refused the lessons of Napoleon that it is foolish to invade Russia by land from the west because it’s God-forsaken winter territory that promises your troops will starve.

All of this once again points to the wise words of Georges Santayana: “Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”

I submit the collapse of America’s political and economic system is the result of our collective ho-hum attitude toward the study of history. Most recently I have watched in horror as our political leaders and their rivals refuse to seriously look at what worked on the peoples’ behalf in combatting the Great Depression, FDR’s groundbreaking idea that when the private sector fails to provide jobs, the government must do it.

Last, but not least, the United States political leaders willfully have ignored a Medicare for all heath care system that would save a lot of everyday working stiffs who have lost their coverage because they have lost their jobs with COVID-19. Joe Biden has failed us miserably on that issue.

Ya’ll can tell me: “America, love it or leave it.” First, I can’t afford to make the move. Second, if I love this land, I’ll do everything I can to try to make it the best it can be.