The Good, the bad, the ugly and the dribble...

Forgive me while I climb up on my soap box.

Oklahoma is trying to get rid of it's A.P. History program and it isn't the only state. One of the reasons stated is "it omits American Exceptionalism" and "focus on the negative". If that is truly the reason either they didn't listen in their history classes or they should get rid of history in school altogether.  If it is the former I pity their teachers and our forefathers.  If it is the later, I weep for the future.

Now history can teach us, it can entertain us and it can destroy us. By studying history Secretary of State William Seward saw that the U.S needed to attain the Hawaiian Islands,  Midway Island, Guam, as much of the Philippines as possible and Alaska. He was laughed at. In fact Alaska, his big purchase from Russia, was called Seward's Folly. His reason for why He U.S. should acquire all these places was to protect the States from Russia,  Japan and China in the event of a war. Alaska, with the discovery of Gold paid for itself before it was even officially purchased.  That was in the 1860s.

It can entertain us by just reading it. It may not seem it but stories like the Odyssey by Homer, fairy tales by the Grimm brothers or Hans Christen Anderson, or The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer tell us about the culture and the fears and hopes of the people.  The Odyssey tells us about the Greek social system and what was expected of families at the time. The fairy tales tell us of a changing social world. Where scullery maids could become princesses and a dark world was expected for all who didn't listen to their parents. Chaucer gives as one of the rarest looks into social classes in Medieval England. In fact not much is known about 130Os beyond the Kings and Lords of England without his glimpse into a very dirty minded lower class view of the world.

the Subjects of the Canterbury Tales

Yet in the right/wrong hands history can and has been used to support ill gains. Hitler, Lenin, Hussein, Napoleon, and Cesar all studied their predecessors to learn how to best bend and keep the people in their power. Some were better than others. Slave holders throughout time used it to justify the act. Men have used it to suppress women and women to control men. It has been used to justify war, to support violence, and too put one human over another.

John Brown and the War against Slavery. the original is in the Kansas State House but a copy resides were John Brown made his finial stand, Harpers Ferry, WV.

When we teach it we should not omit it, not one part, because when we do we succumb to the dark ages once more. History will never be simple, never be easy, and that is because humans aren't. We have killed and suppressed each other, we have led with heavy hearts and yet we are still here. We are still learning and still growing and without telling the good, the bad, the ugly, and the useless dribble that can't continue. So yes America is amazing but we aren't perfect, and we still have aways to go and so does the rest of the world.