There’s a post at Media Myth Alert that explains why Thomas Jefferson’s having fathered a child by Sally Hemmings, a Negro slave, is far from proven fact. Indeed, the preponderence of evidence points away from that conclusion, something that cannot be proven solely on the basis of DNA testing.
The movie clip above ends with the quote “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” That’s mostly what the press does.
Most of our history as a nation is legend. I imagine it’s much the same in other countries. At the professional level it’s reassuring: there will apparently always be a market for fiction.
I happen to be reading Ernie Pyle, a great reporter, a damned good writer though his style is unobtrusive. My sense is that he knew the truth and tried to hew as close to the truth as he could without doing real damage to the legends that were sustaining a frightened population. A careful, skeptical reader could make out the truth, while the average reader would find the reassurance he needed.
Would we have fought WW2 as well if we’d known our soldiers were shooting prisoners, for example? Would we have ponied up as much in war bonds if we’d known that a lot of our generals were incompetents? Would we have saved the world if we’d been reminded that we were johnny-come-latelys who were only going to play in the last three innings?
I think 16 year-olds know the answer to that, but older men aren’t so sure.
Michael-
You brought up two points that have intrigued and troubled me in the era that began in 2001.
The first was the realization that winning wars is impossible without propaganda and a fair amount of blind jingoism.
The second point is with respect to war bonds. After 9/11 and declaration of war on the Taliban regime i Afghanistan, fully expected GWB to announce the issuance of war bonds (or Patriot Bonds or some such.) to this day I’m baffled why they didn’t capitalize on the patriotic fervor that had taken hold, in order to finance the war. Although I don’t buy the idea that our dire economic situation is primarily related to the “War on Terrorism”, I do have to wonder if things might not be as bad if that spending had been financed by our own citizens. I don’t know enough about economics to know if that would make a difference or not, but intuitively it seems as though it might.
I think the sequence of events here was that most historians had decided that Jefferson _probably_ fathered children w/ Hemmings based upon historical analysis, and then the DNA testing which showed a Jefferson contribution to the Hemmings line was seen as confirmation. This DNA testing was done by the establishment historian group at Monticello.
And then a group formed to restore Jefferson’s honor and hired its own DNA study, which (as I recall) fingered Jefferson’s brother or multiple Jeffersons not named Thomas. This group is motivated and easy to discount if one wishes, but only a motivated group would have enough interest in raising the money and doing the necessary work for the project.
CS:
I recall 9-11 clearly as do we all, and the days after. I was stunned and stung when Mr. Bush seemed to go out of his way to say that he would need nothing from us, that we should go shopping. I would have signed over my house had he asked. It was just the first warning flag that maybe he didn’t quite understand what he was doing.
I’m paying a lot of attention to WW2 right now because of a book proposal I have out. One of the interesting small truths I learned or at least had driven home to me is the need to have combat soldiers come to hate the enemy. Not just resent, not see as a problem to be dealt with, but hate. Hate made good soldiers.
It also made people strong on the home front, and propaganda was part of that.
What is so ironic is that perhaps alone among modern wars, the propaganda directed at engendering hatred of the Nazis and the Japanese was if anything too naive. The reality that the Allies discovered at Dachau defied the imagination of propagandists.
I’m paying a lot of attention to WW2 right now because of a book proposal I have out. One of the interesting small truths I learned or at least had driven home to me is the need to have combat soldiers come to hate the enemy. Not just resent, not see as a problem to be dealt with, but hate. Hate made good soldiers.
That also appears to be the emotion being propagated by our government today, i.e. “The War on Women,” fissures rubbed with salty language alienating races, classes, gender, and especially parties and political figures in those parties. After all, hate clouds reason, sensibilities, balance, and is a perfect means for a person or a government to win battles, attaining their ends, without having to explain any details of how right or wrong they were in doing so.
Jan:
You mean like the “War on Christmas” that Fox News gins up every year? The one that precedes your example by years?
Michael,
I think using the “war” on anything is taking exaggeration too far, including the example you gave dealing with Christmas.
However, the woman’s war hype has had a far greater insidious impact than the Christmas meme has ever had. After all, bringing to light the gradual deletion of holiday images and speech was an argument made to counter PC ideology and secular constraints over religious expression. The war on women, though, exploits the unsettled Roe vs Wade decision, oftentimes misdirecting women’s emotions and conscience by sanctimoniously condoning and pushing for reproductive rights over the life of a viable yet technically “unborn” life.
It’s settled. It’s just not settled in the way that either advocates or counter-advocates want.
What I meant by ‘unsettled’ Dave is that it continues to have a contentious constitutional appraisal regarding the grounds on which it was passed. In fact the woman, named in the original case, said she was coerced by women’s groups, and now regets her decision. This is similar to the circumstances surrounding the PPACA SCOTUS decision, by Roberts, based on him inserting himself into interpreting the law as a “tax,” rather than how it was sold to the people as a “fee,” in order for it to pass constitutional mustard. Otherwise, it would have been rendered unconstitutional.
….the mandate would have been unconstitutional, which would have made the law unworkable.
You people just really don’t believe in the United States constitution, do you? When the Supremes say it’s constitutional, it is. I don’t like pro-gun decisions, I think they’re stupid and dangerous, but I accept their constitutionality, once the Supremes have spoken. That’s the way it works, Jan. Maybe you could explain that to the rest of the tea party nuts.
“… but I accept their constitutionality, once the Supremes have spoken. That’s the way it works, Jan. Maybe you could explain that to the rest of the tea party nuts.”
Michael,
Roe vs Wade has been a contentious ruling because the court based it’s decision rather arbitrarily that the woman’s rights to privacy (meaning the decision to abort a baby’s life) was greater than a state’s interest in protecting the life of an unborn child. In many people’s minds and hearts, this was an instance of judicial activism, stretching and elevating the constitutional components of the rights to privacy clause, in the 14th Amendment, over the ones embraced in the 9th Amendment setting forth government’s enumerated powers.
Much though has happened during the intervening 40 years, and medicine has greatly advanced a child’s chances of survival without completing the normal 9 month gestation period. But, the original abortion ruling has only solidified and even crossed the line into acceptance of late-term abortions, whereby a viable infant can be “constitutionally” exterminated purely on demand by the mother. Dr. Kermit Gosnell was a “poster physician” of how Roe vs Wade has run amok over the years, rationalizing an unconscionable termination of life leeway in the legal implementation of an outdated law.
The 5-4 Kelso ruling in 2005 was another controversial decision made by the court dealing with imminent domain, and the rights of government to forcefully take private property “to further economic growth” for the community at large. Opposition to this constitutional outcome was widespread and enduring. The same as what is seen in the current PPACA debate.
In all three instances, Roe vs Wade, Kelso, and the PPACA, the courts ruled in favor of government over the general public’s will or desire for such laws. As for gun ownership issues, the SCOTUS has rendered decisions affirming the right to own weapons, but has not generated (to my knowledge) any legal decisions banning gun control. So, Michael, your argument is specious, at best, in comparing your milquetoast acceptance of rather benign constitutional gun rulings to the more fervent dissent of those regarding judicial decisions effecting an infant’s right to life, private property rights, and the right to be in charge of your own health care. These are fundamental elements found in most people’s lives — children, home and health — and, if the public feels there has been an overreach by government they have the right to respond and push back on said rulings…at least until or if government becomes so big that they are able to legally suspend and/or disable such dissent. Then we will have a dictatorship.