81–90 of 141 posts
I saw a documentary which analyzed footage found around 2000 iirc (discovered old footage) of the murder. The conclusion was that due to the wound exit, the shooter could never have been Oswald. It convinced me. Who does the American public currently believe to be the shooter? Is there consensus for some theory?
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> Who does the American public currently believe to be the shooter? What does this have to do with anything? Reality isn't a democracy. It's absolutely possible the shot came from Oswald. Tastelessness aside, try playing JFK Reloaded ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JFK_Reloaded ). Claiming the ballistics don't make sense is as debunked as claiming jet fuel can't melt steel beams.
> claiming jet fuel can't melt steel beams Just note: Jet Fuel probably can't melt steel beams, because steel has a significantly higher melting point than the temperature of jet fuel. Of course, Steel Beams are about as strong as a wet-noodle at Jet-fuel temperatures: https://youtu.be/FzF1KySHmUA?t=1m55s Which of course, would cause the towers to collapse. But seriously, Jet Fuel doesn't "melt" steel beams. It just…
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It wasn't just you. The other European colonization efforts likewise destroyed the lives of millions of people. I always get a chuckle when I see Europeans deriding the American Empire. Pot calling the kettle black much?
" I always get a chuckle when I see Europeans deriding the American Empire. Pot calling the kettle black much?" You can't put all European countries in a single pot here, only a small part of them were leading empires. Most of other countries/nations were incorporated in empires against their will and suffered greatly too.
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" I always get a chuckle when I see Europeans deriding the American Empire. Pot calling the kettle black much?" You can't put all European countries in a single pot here, only a small part of them were leading empires. Most of other countries/nations were incorporated in empires against their will and suffered greatly too.
Hm ... Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Dutch, Austria, Russia ... just come to my mind, when I think of european empires. So what "most other nations" are left, except for some easterns states?
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I was under the impression that British schools still teach that colonies actually benefited from British occupation. Looks like you went out of the way to learn the reality. Kudos!
A lot of British people (over 60% when polled I believe) are convinced that our Empire was a positive thing overall for the world. They tend to gloss over the uncomfortable parts. I find it the most disgusting aspect of my country and its people. Nationalism at its worst.
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off-topic opportunity: should history be taught in school ? it's a weird blend of nationalist myth, folklore, ignorant (or not) lies and revisionnism. ps: people I didn't mean to stay ignorant, but hinting at rethinking what we're teaching. History is extremely subtle and trimmed far too much for kids (hence the bad blend I described above).
Just a thought: growing up I had moved around the country a bit, and perhaps this led me to be introduced to wildly different ideas about history. For example, I was taught both the States Rights and the Slavery motives of the civil war, in both primary school and in Uni! Another: My history texts taught me to be once quite strongly of the belief that the atomic bombings of Japan were necessary, and even saved lives,…
So that's where that attitude / excuse comes from whenever I talk to americans about the bombings of Japan?! Is that literally taught in history classes? It always seemed to me like a statement made by an indoctrinated mind. It was nuclear bombs used on civilians in two densely populated cities. How can people spin that into something good?
One of the best Radiolab episodes I've heard was Mau Mau [1], which chronicled the uncovering of thousands of documents pertaining to the British Empire in Kenya. The extent to which history must be rewritten is stunning, only to be surpassed by the brutality of the English. Not that releasing the JFK assassination files would rewrite an extensive period of history, but the precedent remains: the grim truth of histor…
off-topic opportunity: should history be taught in school ? it's a weird blend of nationalist myth, folklore, ignorant (or not) lies and revisionnism. ps: people I didn't mean to stay ignorant, but hinting at rethinking what we're teaching. History is extremely subtle and trimmed far too much for kids (hence the bad blend I described above).
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off-topic opportunity: should history be taught in school ? it's a weird blend of nationalist myth, folklore, ignorant (or not) lies and revisionnism. ps: people I didn't mean to stay ignorant, but hinting at rethinking what we're teaching. History is extremely subtle and trimmed far too much for kids (hence the bad blend I described above).
It may be biased, but the alternative, having no formal history lessons, is far worse. At the very least it provides a shared cultural identity, and presents lessons learned from the past. Hopefully moving forward we won't have to worry so much about the revisionism. With everything being documented the internet, we most likely will just have to content with sifting through it all to find the truth.
It depends. If the history lessons are strongly indoctrinating, then it's better not to have them. How many of the very good principles of Communism are being dismissed because people have been taught that communism == the Russian implementation of it?
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I was under the impression that British schools still teach that colonies actually benefited from British occupation. Looks like you went out of the way to learn the reality. Kudos!
A lot of British people (over 60% when polled I believe) are convinced that our Empire was a positive thing overall for the world. They tend to gloss over the uncomfortable parts. I find it the most disgusting aspect of my country and its people. Nationalism at its worst.
The same argument can be made for the Roman Empire. Empires of the past are looked down on because they are a unified machine of violence, a center of evil we can point to and hate.
Creating civilization is brutal, but the alternative is much scarier. A world of tribes and decentralized violence & oppression toward no end. Just as much pain, but not recorded, all in vain.