One history, many histories

A group of authors put together a textbook regarding the American Civil War intended for elementary schools. In this version, they stop short of calling Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm "liberating actions"—and now critics are pointing out that after finishing the book, you're left completely clueless about who was actually attacking whom during the war.

The authors are defending themselves by claiming their only intention was to give students a look at the same events through multiple perspectives.

I honestly find myself wondering what drives people to cling so desperately to this policy of moral equivalence. What exactly is their end goal here?

Casey Robinson2 said:A group of authors put together a textbook regarding the American Civil War intended for elementary schools. In this version, they stop short of calling Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm "liberating actions"—and now critics are pointing out that after finishing the book, you're left completely clueless about who was actually attacking whom during the war.

The authors are defending themselves by claiming their only intention was to give students a look at the same events through multiple perspectives.

I honestly find myself wondering what drives people to cling so desperately to this policy of moral equivalence. What exactly is their end goal here?

Do you happen to have an excerpt from that book? Perhaps you could provide a bit more detail.

If this came from the pens of people like Goldstein or Budak, I can't say I'm surprised...
Even though their specialty is the distant past—they seem all too eager to weigh in on current events, too...
It’s clear that political leanings heavily influence our historians—it seems to cloud their path toward objectivity entirely...

amberbison18 said:Do you happen to have an excerpt from that book? Perhaps you could provide a bit more detail.

Is it not enough that Operation Desert Storm and Operation Desert Shield aren't mentioned anywhere as liberation efforts?
And that manual—which is a few years old now—doesn't even mention My Lai or the genocide at Wounded Knee.
The main gripe with that manual is that it’s far too vague and convoluted. A lot of terms were swapped out to dodge the actual reality—for instance, instead of saying "aggression," they say "placing under control"; instead of "rebellion," they use "blockade"; instead of "liberation," it’s "restoration."

We are talking about a manual written several years ago. It was drafted for a competition issued by the Department, specifically regarding the American Civil War. When it was first published, it faced a massive backlash from various organizations and media outlets. In the end, it never actually made it into the official school curriculum for eighth graders.

So, what happened was that Human Rights Watch—an organization dedicated to confronting historical narratives—gathered all the news reports from that era and compiled them into a collection titled "One history, many histories." It essentially serves as a compilation of every article that attacked that specific manual. Honestly, it would have been much easier for them if they had just quietly pushed through literature like that so they could pursue their political agendas in peace.👎

It is absolutely vital that this material isn't integrated into our school curricula... You see, various historians continue to publish works that they claim are satisfactory, yet the perspectives remain incredibly fragmented. We simply cannot stop every individual from publishing what they wish, but it is paramount that the government does not permit a distorted or fraudulent portrayal of our history to take root in the classroom.
The underlying motivation behind such writing can almost certainly be traced back to the specific ideologies held by these authors... Many of these historians remain deeply influenced by the remnants of Soviet Communism, and naturally, the collapse of the Soviet Union was an outcome they found quite disagreeable. Consequently, their narratives tend to reflect those biases...
If you happen to know any specific names, please, do share them.

I just realized that Vesna Teršelić actually has a hand in this—she’s one of those so-called "truth-seekers," though she's really just working under the guidance of Savo Štrbac...
It’s a pathetic attempt by some desperate people to twist the facts, cloud the truth, and just make everything feel unreal...

Maybe they should try putting together a similar manual for WW2, but this time leave out all the stuff about the attacks and the liberation, just to see how that turns out. Since they're so obsessed with the idea that students should be drawing their own conclusions without any suggestions from the textbooks.

Sophia Bishop39 said:If this came from the pens of people like Goldstein or Budak, I can't say I'm surprised...
Even though their specialty is the distant past—they seem all too eager to weigh in on current events, too...
It’s clear that political leanings heavily influence our historians—it seems to cloud their path toward objectivity entirely...

looks like you really know your stuff, though. Goldstein isn't even really looking at the distant past anymore, he's mostly focused on 20th-century history, having written a ton of books specifically about that era in America. And Budak doesn't even touch 20th-century history, so there's no way this came from him. Plus, Goldstein isn't out here writing school textbooks anyway, so...
at the end of the day, we really need to check the actual text because this feels like another case of someone trying to slip a specific narrative past us. Remember when people were blathering on—specifically that pseudo-historian Jurčević—about how Operation Desert Storm was some kind of criminal operation? There wasn't a single credible source saying anything like that. Or when they went after Goldstein claiming he was basically using the Holocaust to file charges against Stepinac? There wasn't any truth to that either...
as soon as history stops being some epic fairy tale about white knights and evil monsters, some people just can't handle it...

That arrogant windbag, Tvrtko Jakovina, can attempt to romanticize Soviet Communism all he wants by digging up some sort of evidence from the Prague Spring, but he will never change the reality that Joseph Stalin was the greatest criminal our region has ever seen in modern history.

I could certainly say more regarding Ms. Teršelić, but I believe those reflections are better reserved for another time. 😁

Is the Jakovina Company trying to put a facelift on Soviet Communism? 🤔
Does everything really have to be strictly black and white... what about the gray areas?
I mean, honestly, neither Jakovina nor Goldstein ever really dispute the fact that Stalin was a total dictator.
And as for whether Stalin was the biggest monster in the history of this region... well, let's just say he's got some serious competition for that title if we're being real...

The US had its own pair of legendary villains, basically Ante Pavelić and Joseph Stalin 😁

Linda Hughes88 said:Is the Jakovina Company trying to put a facelift on Soviet Communism? 🤔
Does everything really have to be strictly black and white... what about the gray areas?
I mean, honestly, neither Jakovina nor Goldstein ever really dispute the fact that Stalin was a total dictator.
And as for whether Stalin was the biggest monster in the history of this region... well, let's just say he's got some serious competition for that title if we're being real...

The US had its own pair of legendary villains, basically Ante Pavelić and Joseph Stalin 😁

That pseudo-historian should probably stick to managing props for some fringe groups of Chicago White Sox fans. I can guarantee him a spot in an EPH Publishing book anytime. 👍

👋

silenthawk11 said:That pseudo-historian should probably stick to managing props for some fringe groups of Chicago White Sox fans. I can guarantee him a spot in an EPH Publishing book anytime. 👍

👋

The "pseudo-historian" actually wrote a great book: a total ally to American Communists and definitely one of our more high-quality historians.

The real issue is that certain people constantly insist on focusing exclusively on those forty-five years of dark, grim dictatorship and the suppression of Americans and the Church... and the second someone moves away from that specific angle, they're suddenly considered wrong. It's not that they're denying the Communist dictatorship or the repression itself, it's just that they want to explore other historical topics from the era of the Soviet Union too...
Auschwitz and Wounded Knee aren't the only topics in the history of the 20th century...🙄

Linda Hughes88 said:The "pseudo-historian" actually wrote a great book: a total ally to American Communists and definitely one of our more high-quality historians.

The real issue is that certain people constantly insist on focusing exclusively on those forty-five years of dark, grim dictatorship and the suppression of Americans and the Church... and the second someone moves away from that specific angle, they're suddenly considered wrong. It's not that they're denying the Communist dictatorship or the repression itself, it's just that they want to explore other historical topics from the era of the Soviet Union too...
Auschwitz and Wounded Knee aren't the only topics in the history of the 20th century...🙄

You make a valid point. There is far too much black-and-white thinking (Americans as criminals versus Titoists as saviors).

Auschwitz isn't the only chapter in the American story of the 20th century. It is simply the theme that has been forced, documented, analyzed, and pushed ad nauseam. Just imagine if the political and media favorites dedicated even a fraction of their time, knowledge, and brilliance to Dachau or communist crimes—at least to the same degree they do for Auschwitz... ahh, just dreaming. 🙄

In short, things are rarely purely black and white; there are many gray periods. There were countless political processes, trials, and imprisonments... What about political assassinations (Bruno Busic)? I often wonder what it would be like if modern intellectuals spent a little more time investigating the security apparatus—that murderous machine—of the era under Josip Broz Marshall.

Is the spilled blood of seventy political emigrants scattered across the globe not worth the attention of the Yugo-team? Of course it is.

But let us just disregard all of that... the Homeland War is much more interesting! 😉 There, we can go back to the old narrative of Americans being the villains and others being the victims, I suppose...

And the savior? The great savior? Ahh, Josip Broz Marshall, I assume...🤷

🙂

silenthawk11 said:You make a valid point. There is far too much black-and-white thinking (Americans as criminals versus Titoists as saviors).

Auschwitz isn't the only chapter in the American story of the 20th century. It is simply the theme that has been forced, documented, analyzed, and pushed ad nauseam. Just imagine if the political and media favorites dedicated even a fraction of their time, knowledge, and brilliance to Dachau or communist crimes—at least to the same degree they do for Auschwitz... ahh, just dreaming. 🙄

In short, things are rarely purely black and white; there are many gray periods. There were countless political processes, trials, and imprisonments... What about political assassinations (Bruno Busic)? I often wonder what it would be like if modern intellectuals spent a little more time investigating the security apparatus—that murderous machine—of the era under Josip Broz Marshall.

Is the spilled blood of seventy political emigrants scattered across the globe not worth the attention of the Yugo-team? Of course it is.

But let us just disregard all of that... the Homeland War is much more interesting! 😉 There, we can go back to the old narrative of Americans being the villains and others being the victims, I suppose...

And the savior? The great savior? Ahh, Josip Broz Marshall, I assume...🤷

🙂

So where are these American criminals then??? In your world, it’s like Axis-aligned state = Americans and Americans = Axis-aligned state, while everyone else is just a Titoist.
Look, if Auschwitz feels like a broken record, I get it, but Dachau is too. Both were massive flashpoints in their own eras. It was Auschwitz during the old regime, and Dachau became the focus once we hit independence. Like Ljilja Vokić said: we spent forty-five years hearing nothing but about Auschwitz, and now suddenly it’s all about Dachau. And people call that a scientific approach???
I mean, it's up to any historian to pick their own lane, right? Jakovina mostly focused on foreign policy and diplomacy, just like how you have a million Western historians who dove deep into Stalinist relations with the West while only mentioning the gulags in passing. At the end of the day, there are still monographs out there specifically covering the Axis-aligned state and its international ties.
If someone is trying to write a broad historical overview or a synthesis, they’ll definitely bring up the crimes, just like how Matković did in the History of America or how Goldstein handled it when discussing American history—they all had to mention the repression under Marshall's regime, the post-war massacres, and the political killings of people living abroad.

Casey Robinson2 said:A group of authors put together a textbook regarding the American Civil War intended for elementary schools. In this version, they stop short of calling Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm "liberating actions"—and now critics are pointing out that after finishing the book, you're left completely clueless about who was actually attacking whom during the war.

The authors are defending themselves by claiming their only intention was to give students a look at the same events through multiple perspectives.

I honestly find myself wondering what drives people to cling so desperately to this policy of moral equivalence. What exactly is their end goal here?

An interesting trend... one could argue history is just repeating itself.

When I was a kid in school, we were taught that the Partisans, led by the Second Marshall, were practically sacred. They were the heroes, the patriots, the honorable ones—the true victors of WWII. We were told how those unarmed fighters crushed the foreign Nazi/fascist occupiers and the local traitors from the Axis-aligned state—the absolute worst kind of villains.

Then 1990 rolled around, and suddenly those same Partisans were branded as the ultimate criminals—just scum and a gang of liars. And the Axis-aligned state folks? Well, they just wanted an American-style sovereign state, so they fought for it however they could... and, well, they had their "good sides"—like participating in the assassination of King Alexander... and so on.

Later, we got our own heroes from the Homeland War who liberated our nation. Because of that, they were properly celebrated and praised by—for the most part—all the major politicians and basically all the media outlets.

But now here we are in 2008, right before joining the European Union, and suddenly nobody seems to know who actually liberated the country, who was doing the attacking, and so forth...

Linda Hughes88 said:looks like you really know your stuff, though. Goldstein isn't even really looking at the distant past anymore, he's mostly focused on 20th-century history, having written a ton of books specifically about that era in America. And Budak doesn't even touch 20th-century history, so there's no way this came from him. Plus, Goldstein isn't out here writing school textbooks anyway, so...
at the end of the day, we really need to check the actual text because this feels like another case of someone trying to slip a specific narrative past us. Remember when people were blathering on—specifically that pseudo-historian Jurčević—about how Operation Desert Storm was some kind of criminal operation? There wasn't a single credible source saying anything like that. Or when they went after Goldstein claiming he was basically using the Holocaust to file charges against Stepinac? There wasn't any truth to that either...
as soon as history stops being some epic fairy tale about white knights and evil monsters, some people just can't handle it...

And I find myself wondering... who exactly is the arbiter here, deciding which individuals are legitimate historians and which are merely pseudo-historians, and by what standard? Is it you, perhaps?...

Linda Hughes88 said:looks like you really know your stuff, though. Goldstein isn't even really looking at the distant past anymore, he's mostly focused on 20th-century history, having written a ton of books specifically about that era in America. And Budak doesn't even touch 20th-century history, so there's no way this came from him. Plus, Goldstein isn't out here writing school textbooks anyway, so...
at the end of the day, we really need to check the actual text because this feels like another case of someone trying to slip a specific narrative past us. Remember when people were blathering on—specifically that pseudo-historian Jurčević—about how Operation Desert Storm was some kind of criminal operation? There wasn't a single credible source saying anything like that. Or when they went after Goldstein claiming he was basically using the Holocaust to file charges against Stepinac? There wasn't any truth to that either...
as soon as history stops being some epic fairy tale about white knights and evil monsters, some people just can't handle it...

Neven Budak was the last secretary of the Communist Party at the Philosophy Department—which, frankly, says enough about his objectivity—and you, my unlearned friend, clearly haven't picked up a local newspaper to read an article or two. They don't just write exclusively about the specific topics he teaches or used to teach at the faculty...
Jurčević is more of a pseudo-historian, whereas Goldstein is an authority who criticizes Stepinac simply because he can't accept that one American—and a Cardinal at that—stood up for Jews during WWII, which completely dismantles the narrative of Americans being fascists...
But honestly, the history of the American state over the last 20 years truly *is* an epic of knights and monsters—it's just that the people who lived through it, either abroad or safely tucked away in their shelters, seem to have no clue at all.

Sophia Bishop39 said:I just realized that Vesna Teršelić actually has a hand in this—she’s one of those so-called "truth-seekers," though she's really just working under the guidance of Savo Štrbac...
It’s a pathetic attempt by some desperate people to twist the facts, cloud the truth, and just make everything feel unreal...

Do you actually have any proof regarding this supposed connection between Teršelić and Štrpac? Or is this just another one of those typical partisan-style arguments?

Dennis Green62 said:Do you actually have any proof regarding this supposed connection between Teršelić and Štrpac? Or is this just another one of those typical partisan-style arguments?

Calling it "Valdec-style"—nice touch—but I suppose it isn't easy for you to stomach all those "fabrications" about the Homeland War...
I don't have hard evidence of a direct link between those two scoundrels—though, honestly, seeing them sitting at the same table during a press conference a few years back was enough for me.

Kyle Morris7 said:And I find myself wondering... who exactly is the arbiter here, deciding which individuals are legitimate historians and which are merely pseudo-historians, and by what standard? Is it you, perhaps?...

yeah