Re: Curriculum question "Facing History and Ourselves"

[Dave Stratman <Newdem@AOL.COM>]

In a message dated 2/5/2002 10:47:50 PM Eastern Standard Time,
kber@EARTHLINK.NET writes:


> Sorry, I don't buy into that conspiracy theory.  It doesn't matter whether
> one is arguing from the right about black UN helicopters or from the left
> about the foundations and the mason and whatever else you presume is
> supressing everyone else.  If you go ar enough out, you will meet the other
> half of the lunatic fringe coming around the circle to meet you. If this is
> an example of the thought processes, then I think Victor may have actually
>

I think it's worth looking at what Ken is saying here. Like Victor, he is
anxious to avoid discussion of the social origins of anti-Semitism, or it
seems of any phenomena. So just as Victor attacks as "conspiracy theory" any
attempt to analyze the policy goals of the corporate players behind education
reform, Ken feels a need to ridicule the notion that anti-Semitism could
actually be encouraged by ruling elites or be useful to them--say, to divide
people or to scapegoat innocent Jews for problems which the elites themselves
were causing.

It's funny, though, but my reading of history suggests that the strategy of
"Divide and Rule"--or "Divide et impero"--has a long and ugly history. Hitler
wasn't actually the first to use this strategy, Ken, nor was he the last.

Isn't Slobodan Milosevic on trial even as we speak for war
crimes--genocide--not entirely dissimilar from what Hitler did to Jews? And
didn't he use nationalist ideas of a Greater Serbia and attacks on Bosnians
to strengthen his rule--that is, his domination of the Serbs themselves? Did
Serbian nationalism and antipathy between Serbs and other Balkan
nationalities exist before Milosevic? Of course they did; the Balkans have a
long and bloody history involving ethnic conflicts. Did Milosevic encourage
ethnic hatred and use this history to his advantage? You bet he did--as did
centuries of rulers before him.

I think--stop me if I'm being crazy here, Ken--that a careful reading of
American history would suggest that even in our own country there have been
periods in which powerful figures have encouraged racial hatred and used it
precisely to set people against each other and to control them. Conspiracy
theory? Or is this the way things really work? Or are you, like Victor,
simply such an elitist that you can't believe that "our betters" would do
anything to harm us?

Dave Stratman
Editor, New Democracy
<A HREF="newdemocracyworld.org">www.newdemocracyworld.org</A>
5 Burr Street
Boston, MA 02130
617-524-4073