Quack History

We have been subjected to ‘Quack Medicine’ throughout time, with get-well promises, fancy wiz-bang do nothing gadgets, and snake oil lotions. In recent years we have been bombarded with the ‘Quack Science’ of Al Gore’s global warming. And now, we have the latest arrival, ‘Quack History,’ with the 1619 Project. Based on the date of April 1619, when a ship carrying the first African slaves arrived in Virginia. The 1619 Project was supposed to commemorate the 400-year anniversary of the arrival of slavery in North America.

The 1619 Project is a conglomeration of essays and stories passed on as fact in a series starting in 2019 by Nikole Hannah-Jones, in The New York Times Magazine. This was challenged by leading historians, who pointed out the glaring inaccuracies. Their objections were rebuffed by the chief editor, Jake Silverstein who stood by the project. Claims that the American Revolution was fought over slavery, that slavery fueled the Revolution. Claims that America wasn’t a Democracy until Black Americans made it one, and American Capitalism is brutal, you can trace that to the plantation.

This twisted history was structured around the ideology of the socialist left - the proper term is propaganda. They are trying to use the tragedy of slavery as a platform to incite and fuel political goals of the hard left. This is some of the garbage they use as a reason for tearing down statues, rioting, silencing free speech, and pushing an alternative history in the nation’s schools. The left’s accusations are all they need to declare the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as illegitimate. The topics raised by the 1619 Project actually have their roots in the Civil War of 1861-1865. Slavery ended with the Civil War which occurred 80 years after the Revolutionary War.

The socialists of the Democrat Party and their radical allies have been trying to re-write the history of the United States and its place in the world for decades. Making accusations against the U.S., calling us a racist, evil, war-mongering country, founded by evil slave-owning old white guys. That the United States starts wars, is bent on conquest and the occupying of countries for our financial benefit. That is repugnant, the only thing the U.S. has asked of other countries, is for a place bury our dead.

Their goal is to poison the minds of school students at all levels, to believe that the United States is an evil and immoral country that needs to be torn down and rebuilt, into some undefined magical utopian socialist world. The history and social studies curriculum that has been taught in schools for the past three decades has omitted events and watered down historic facts. At the end of the Cold War, the class of Americanism vs. Communism was dropped from all schools. This is one subject that should be put back on the curriculum.

Each time a school district replaces textbooks, with supposedly the most accurate books as possible, left-leaning school boards choose the left-leaning books that fit their leftist viewpoint. Forget about facts and historical accuracy, over the years, major events in history are barely mentioned or are twisted out of shape, giving crackpot writers the opportunity to create their version of history, presenting historical events and individuals in a false context. History is messy, it’s never been neat and clean, the wrongs must be shown with the rights, but as accurately as possible.

Socialists and other totalitarian governments have a long history of rewriting history to suit the ruler of that time. Fictional stories are presented as fact, extolling the heroism of their dear leader, paintings and photos are created to support this fiction and then published. New holidays and events are celebrated to give legitimacy, changing fiction into fact. As NAZI propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels said, tell a lie long enough and it will become the truth.

In a recent admission as showcased in the Townhall article, About 1619 Project, by Matt Vespa, 28 July 2020. The author, Nikole Hannah-Jones acknowledged that her published effort that was carried in The New York Times Magazine, as The 1619 Project, was not history. It had been presented as factual history which garnered a Pulitzer Prize, but now has the admission that it is just a story. A story set in a historical setting has been used to mislead or to use the modern term, create a narrative - propaganda. If the Pulitzer Prize selection board wants to retain any semblance of a creditability, they should revoke the prize and sue for damages.