History is the source code of the future

Canadian government planned to arrest, intern peace activists

Historian uncovers secret prison camp:

The federal government had detailed lists of political activists and subversives it planned to arrest in the aftermath of a nuclear war or other national emergency, keeping such plans on the books until at least the early 1980s, according to new records obtained by an Ottawa historian.

Anywhere from 700 to 2,500 people, including babies, would have been held in internment camps before being shipped off to more permanent detention facilities.

Cold War historian John Clearwater obtained the records through the Access to Information Act while researching his book, Just Dummies: Cruise Missile Testing in Canada, which is being released today.

Clearwater said the federal government was shaken by the widespread opposition to cruise missile testing.

Although he knew the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service kept close tabs on peace groups during that period, Clearwater said he was surprised by the extent of the government's plans during the Cold War to round up citizens it saw as subversive.

Even level-headed countries like Canada can get carried away in their reaction to internal critics. The headline is wrong--no camp was operating, they were just planned. And the list of names was drawn up.

Technorati Tags: civil liberties, dissent, history, Canada

Rep. Don Rumsfeld on Vietnam

Unpopular Historian: O, the Irony!:

This is what a Republican congressman had to say about the war:

"Recognizing the difficulties, the fact remains that lacking success in meeting the economic, social, and political problems, the US effort, with thousands dead and billions spent and precious time lost, could be completely wasted."

If you go read the entire excerpt, you will learn how completely Mr. Rumsfeld has failed to learn from history.

Technorati Tags: accountability, history, Iraq, Vietnam

Hungary awakens, beaten down only to rise again

The Shadow of a Smile - New York Times:

THE first time I saw deep joy on my father’s face — the kind that comes from within and which is a child’s most reassuring signal from a parent — was on Oct. 23, 1956. It was at Bem Square, on the right bank of the Danube, where thousands of students, a sprinkling of workers and even some young soldiers still in uniform had spontaneously gathered to hear the students’ list of demands for reform by Hungary’s Communist government.

I was holding tight to his hand when a woman appeared on the balcony of the Foreign Ministry, which faces the square, and waved the Hungarian tricolor. The hated Soviet hammer and sickle had been cut from the center. Thus was the symbol of the Hungarian revolution (and so many others still to come) born. When someone in the growing crowd brazenly shouted, “Ruszki haza!” — “Russians go home” — the revolution had its slogan, as well.

Highs and lows that mark the human spirit, but we are eternally optimistic. The trouble in Hungary now only makes me wonder how long it will be before the spirit of liberty appears again.

Technorati Tags: Communism, history, Hungary

Saying "goodbye" to Iraq's heritage

'Stop the looters destroying history' - World - Times Online:

THE cultural treasures of Iraq — the birthplace of writing, codified law, mathematics, medicine and astronomy — are being obliterated as looters take advantage of the country’s bloody chaos.

Fourteen of the world’s leading archaeologists have written to the President and Prime Minister of the country, demanding immediate action to stem the vandalism after seeing photographs of sites left pockmarked by enormous craters.

Among examples in the letter, seen yesterday by The Times, was a Babylonian sculpture of a lion dating from about 1700BC that lost its head because the terracotta shattered as looters tried to remove it.

Another was the destruction of the Ana Minaret on the Euphrates about 190 miles (310km) west of Baghdad, revered for 1,000 years as a unique construction. It was blown up by Islamic extremists apparently for fear that it would be used as an American observation post.

Another irreplaceable human casualty of this war.

Technorati Tags: history, Iraq, war

Art Monk and black Syracuse players finally get their letters

History News Network:

In 1970, nine black Syracuse University football players became rebellious outcasts when they quit the team to protest racial injustice.

Now, 36 years later, the university is officially recognizing them for their courageous stand.

On Friday, they received Chancellor's Medals, one of the university's highest honors. Chancellor Nancy Cantor called the men "emblematic of the values we want for our students and for ourselves when we face critical issues of justice and equality."

On Saturday, former National Football League star Art Monk, a 1980 Syracuse alumnus, gave them their long-denied letterman jackets at a halftime ceremony during the Syracuse-Louisville football game.

As a matter of record, Wikipedia does not mention Monk and his teammates protest at this writing, just his pro career with the Washington Redskins.

Technorati Tags: history, football, wikipedia

One for the history books: Anatomy of a baseball cheat

ESPN.com: Page 2 : The cap that killed the Cardinals?:

Pine tar, gum, shoe polish, "a big clump of dirt" -- whatever Kenny Rogers had out there Sunday night, Uni Watch thinks everyone's looking for it in the wrong place. Instead of poring over still shots of Rogers' hand, take a look at his cap.

To explain: Rogers prefers to wear a batting practice cap, instead of the standard-issue New Era 5950 game cap that all the other players wear. He's been pitching with the BP cap all season, as you can tell from the slightly puffier, more rounded brim and more synthetic-looking fabric (5950s are made of wool, while BP caps are polyester). Detroit's BP cap has a colored sandwich brim -- white at home, orange on the road -- which would be a no-no for regular game action, so Rogers apparently fills in the colored edge with a dark marker, which means he doesn't match his teammates during pregame workouts.

But here's the key: The BP cap has a black underbill, instead of the Tigers' usual light gray. Now ask yourself, if you wanted to take a foreign substance out to the mound with you, wouldn't it be easier to hide it against a black background than a gray one? Far be it from Uni Watch to accuse the Gambler of taking cards from the bottom of the deck, but you have to admit it's an interesting coincidence at the very least. Uni Watch's suggestion: Make Rogers wear a 5950 like everyone else, and then let's see who holds 'em and who folds 'em.

The obvious smear of pine tar on Kenny Rogers' hand will end up being the story of the 2007 World Series.

Technorati Tags: baseball, history

Lewis Lapham plans new current events through history journal

if:book: lapham's quarterly, or "history rhymes"*:

Lewis Lapham, journalist, public intellectual and editor emeritus of Harper's Magazine, is working on a new journal that critically filters current events through the lens of history. It's called Lapham's Quarterly, and here's how the idea works: take a current event, like the Israeli conflict in Lebanon, and a current topic, like the use of civilian homes to store weapons, and put them up against historical documents, like the letter between General Sherman and General Hood debating the placement of the city's population before the Battle of Atlanta. Through the juxtaposition, a continuous line between our forgotten past and our incomprehensible now. The journal is constituted of a section "in the present tense", a collection of relevant historical excerpts, and closing section that returns to the present. Contributing writers are asked to write not about what they think, but what they know. It's a small way to counteract the spin of our relentlessly opinionated media culture.

Where do I subscribe?

Technorati Tags: history, journalism, literature

Empires in decline are defined by rash action

Michael T. Klare: Beware Empires in Decline

Once again, a former subject state—in this case, Iran—is thumbing its nose at its former imperial overlords—Britain and the United States (which together put the megalomaniacal Shah in power there in 1953). Once again, extreme discomfort and distress has been the result. Yes, I recognize that Iran's pursuit of nuclear technology poses a different sort of danger than Egypt's seizure of the Suez Canal (though to hear the British tell it, that was no less of a strategic peril).

But there nevertheless remains a symbolic aspect to this whole crisis that cannot be entirely ignored. A once subservient Third World nation confronts the Greatest Power the World Has Ever Known on something approaching equal terms. It is precisely these sorts of circumstances that are likely to trigger rash, ill-considered action on the part of the declining power....

Read the entire analysis and also this editorial from which it comes. By the author of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum.

Technorati Tags: foreign policy, history, Middle East

Is Iraq Another Vietnam? A historian's view

Robert K. Brigham: Is Iraq Another Vietnam? Historian Robert Brigham Speaks Out

He's co-authored a book with Robert McNamara and was the first Western scholar to be given access to the archives in Hanoi, so it isn't surprising to learn that Vassar historian Robert K. Brigham sees parallels between Vietnam and Iraq. But he fairly shocked a small audience in Seattle today when he claimed that Condoleezza Rice is following in the footsteps of Henry Kissinger in Iraq, reversing the course of Bush administration foreign policy 180 degrees. Neo-con ideology is out, Metternich is in.

Brigham, who lectured at the Army War College last Friday, says that Secretary of State Rice has adopted a Kissingerian 19th century balance-of-power approach to Iraq starkly at odds with the administration's democratic rhetoric in the first term. It's 1815 again, he says, referring to the Congress of Vienna, with Condoleezza Rice playing the part of Austrian Foreign Minister Metternich. Brigham's thesis is that Rice apparently has decided that the only way out of Iraq is for the United States to work covertly in league with Iran and Syria in the hope that they can control the chief groups of insurgents. In exchange for their help, he says, Rice is likely promising Iran and Syria through back channels the chance to become regional major players with American help.

This approach makes a certain amount of sense, he says, noting that both countries might hope to follow the example of China, whose economy began skyrocketing after detente with the United States in the 1970s. Nodding his head in wonderment he observed several times that China's per capita income has quadrupled since the 1970s. If Iran and Syria could achieve similar results their regimes could hope to remain in power forever....

Read the whole article.

Technorati Tags: Condi Rice, history, Iraq, Vietnam

Gaming the past

Global Warming: How History Is Being Manipulated to Undermine Calls for Action:

History is often used in these arguments. Its role can be direct, as when global-warming denialists assert that not long ago scientists were “spectacularly wrong” in claiming that not warming but a new Ice Age threatened us. So writes, for example, the columnist George Will, quoting from news magazines of the early 1970s. However, when people checked the history they found that Will, following a practice common among denialists, “cherry-picked” a few items that served his purpose from a much larger body of evidence.1 Here’s the real history. In the 1970s scientists discovered that climate can be catastrophically variable; they didn’t agree on what would come next; but they all agreed that they knew too little at the time to make a confident prediction. Any resemblance to the current strong scientific consensus is a fantasy.

This is an excellent essay on the uses of history, especially to enlighten and clarify complex topical debates.

Technorati Tags: history, Media