h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Historical revisionism geared towards remolding their and their
administration's image as courageous and righteous politicians who never did wrong and only wanted what was best for the American people and their way of life."
YellowTimes.org "Madeleine Albright and historical revisionism"
October 14
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1621
By Matthew Riemer


http://www.misleader.com/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df10142003.html
Lots of good articles .
Warning- not a pro Bush sort of site.
There is a PDF article available about the rebuilding contracts. Also a history of lies by Bush and a bit on the Patriot Act and Ashcrofts refusal to discuss aspects of it.

Historical revisionism is not a new idea, take a look a Shakespear's "History" plays for a fine example of politically motivated historical revisionism

Hi & Welcome
Agreed - it is nothing new!

but you would think those in power would know better by now, history in the end nearly always shows historical revisionism for what it is


and Hi

and re: the Patriot Act and its use & missuse...

ya might want to take a look at http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/33106.html

Thanks. I will!

OMG

Excuse the overuse of smilies -

This additional information has temporarily blocked my ability to speak. I have been waiting to hear the effects of Patriot ActII. The first P.A. was shocking.

Thank-you for that link.

It takes 60 years here to release the sealed records.
There were revisions before sealing them of course, much done by omissions.

After several "revisions" not much truth exists.
It is not to be found in the history books educating the children of any one Nation. Not that I am aware of anyway!

Here in the UK the information available at the Public Records Office (http://www.pro.gov.uk/) does not appear to suffer much revision but it can take an awful long time for sensitive documents to come into the public domain. I should add that I do have a readers ticket for the PRO and have been known to visit it & use it's archives on occasion.

We have the FOIA = Freedom of Information Act.

Information has been more restricted since Bush has been in office. Before the 9-11 incident here.

Access to pollution reports have been removed along with other Enviromental Records just to name one area of restriction. It was suggested to not release as much info to the public.

I does not credit the public with enough intelligence to hide information. I for one am always suspicious that there is a really big thing to hide.

cannot you use the Freedom of Information Act to see such reports

That is it's intended purpose.
Officially,
BUT it depends!

Clinton said "open" is best. Clinton opened the doors to the Government having more private info too.
Open society requires both the gov and private to be open.

Bush said immediately when in office (paraphrased);
Do Not be so open, judge and refuse if the slightest doubt comes to mind. There was not an explanation of "doubt" and this was well before 9-11 and the additional security being in place.

The first week in office Bush closed access to many of the records in the state of Texas.
He sealed many from the time of his father being in office through to him becoming President. This included his Governorship.

Hi Abbi, Even after the 60 yrs are up, they will only allow the parts that they want the public to see to be released?
The rest just seems to get lost or missfiled
Smudger.

I bet those Texas records probably have a lot of sensitive national security information in them too. So what was the pretext for closing them? Was it because he was president and could or did he have some other excuse?

Speaking of historical revisionism, I saw a thing in another forum some dude had posted saying the Jamestown settlers didn't do nothing to the indians until the indians attacked THEM. Now THAT'S historical revisionism.

So just like the Columbus thing, what they did do is a matter documented in settlers' own journals so how did the dude know they weren't the aggressors?

So the dude says, "Oh, I just can't believe they would have done those things. They were civilized people."

Oh well..

There was no excuse. He did not need one. The President has that executive priveledge.

That was the first bad sign and my fears of the bully pulpit to come. Long before he was challenged by new National Security concerns. Reputation concerns arose after questions about his failed business adventures and the investigations into them.

Yes! If I remember correctly it was just after the answer to what did you say to the investigators? His answer was something to the effect of ;
nothing ,they never showed up.
I know it was not an *I do not remember moment* !

True smudger.

Good "historical views" comment in post RAF

Maybe it's time to remove that privilege then.

I don't see how it relates to any commonwealth interest to allow the president to lock files, especially his own relating to previous political offices he's held.

These jerks allegedly run on their records don't they? Unless he's not planning on running again, his record, all of it, should be in the public domain, and even if he's not running again, everything should be accessible in the archives, unless there is a compelling NATIONAL interest that might forbid it. And that's something I don't think the president should be qualified to decide.

We're only now finding out about what really happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis and had they known back then the people might have made a lot of different decisions at the polls than they actually did.

If these jerks think they're doing the right thing they shouldn't have a problem revealing what they're doing and why at the time. If they're telling lies to the public, then of course they would have a problem revealing what really happens and why.

Probably the best course then might be to refuse to believe or act on anything that they can't sustantiate at the time and that can't be independently verified, and if their representations are in the least bit deceptive, then that should constitute a high crime or misdemeanor requiring expulsion from office and a hefty fine on top of it to pay for the trouble of catching them in the lies.

In terms of political policy, the burden of substantiation should be on the government to prove why they should be allowed to do practically anything. Nothing should be presumed, because their record indicates they're NOT trustworthy.

The current war on Iraq is an excellent example of what can happen if lies are tolerated. Hardly any of the pretexts for the war have been confirmed. Quite the opposite, yet people say we should continue to support the president and his bunch.

I think that's absolute crap. It should be the same as a cop who's caught in a lie while testifying in court. He loses his job, end of story, because he can't do that job without some measure of credibility or integrity.

Should we expect anything less of the president or any other politician? No we shouldn't expect less. We should expect more because a rogue politician can do far more damage than a rogue cop.

I think it should be perfectly clear why that is because most people are complaining that the politicians aren't doing their jobs and then they wonder why. Buh!!

Good Rant