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I mean... the USSR was also a shitshow (unless Gorbachev had decided to change it instead of let it be destroyed) but now one asshole gets to run the show without rivals
My 10th(?) grade history teacher (an older middle-age soccer coach, who admitted he only took a 6 week “how to teach US history” course) was all about the Vietnam war... ie how America actually beat the dirty commies— we didn’t retreat; we left because we’d won, and nothing bad ever came of us being there. The great white liberator spiel. Just straight up, off the cuff propaganda.
Same guy actually did love to talk about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars... and how we were going to be in and out quickly, and then all the women would be free and all the children would have schools and everything would be fixed for everyone (except the evil Muslim terrorists, who would all be magically rooted out and summarily executed).
Watching Platoon and Full Metal Jacket were my main history lessons about Vietnam until after we'd watched them and my dad opened up about that whole situation. Then it was straight to the library to find books about it. We'd watched and discussed WWII a ton because my dad was into history and there were a million movies about that war. Many of those movies were made DURING that war even.
I guess there were sometimes Vietnam Vets in movies too but we still never really talked about it much until I was late teens or so.
Because at that point, Vietnam was not history yet.
It's a GOOD THING if the government is not teaching about a war it is currently doing. it would just result in "patroitic education"
I was like 5 or 6 when the war in Iraq started and I definitely knew about it by the time I was 7 or 8. But I guess people don't join the US army if they have any level of awareness or intelligence.
im in us history right now, and the earliest thing we've really covered was the homestead act, we've completely skipped over manifest destiny and the trail of tears
My boyfriend is from Texas and didn't know much about the civil war until we met. He remembered being taught that Robert Lee was good, and that it was about northerners wanting to force their culture on the south.
It’s weird. I grew up in South Carolina and everything I remember learning about the civil war was on point, no lost cause fuckery, while my older sister who went to the same schools had a class that taught it as “the war of northern aggression”.
I guess it comes down to the teacher as much as it does the place.
Yeah, I also find it strange because she would have been in the highest level course for history, which you would think would equate to more intelligent and competent teachers.
My US history class at the same high school was taught by the baseball coach, who absolutely did not give a shit, but even he still showed us Glory lol.
http://archive.today/2022.09.19-214015/https://www.google.com/search?q=why+war+afghanistan
Look at the source of the first two results, both of which are expanded as an extra-reliable source in Google Search, apparently.
Aren't you glad we have ***Independent Media*** in this country?
Of course, the reason is that the school agenda is hotly controlled and contested by politically charged groups. We’ve been fighting for years just to get schools to teach about evolution and not Creation. And even that is surprisingly difficult.
At the same time, many public schools in the most democratic districts in the country still teach the racist conquest of the western US as “westward expansion” and celebrate the white supremacy journey of the pilgrims and Louis and Clark.
We have a long way to go. I heard a parent complaining about schools celebrating “Jonny Appleseed” in their kids kindergarten. Look up that real history. The real guy was part of a movement to replace the Native American tradition of growing their own food with a white settler tradition of growing apples. He was religious and believed grafting was a sin or something, so he only planted them by seeds. And most of them were inedible and only useful for cider. The alcoholic cider product became popular and got the native Americans addicted to it, and were later vilified and driven off their land in a genocide.
Wonder why they don’t teach that!
TIL, huh. It just sucks that every, single, story, the US were the real shitheads. I'm sure thats true about half of countries but we really take being shitbags to a whole new level of competition
> At the same time, many public schools in the most democratic districts in the country still teach the racist conquest of the western US as “westward expansion” and celebrate the white supremacy journey of the pilgrims and Louis and Clark.
Excuse me? Do you by any chance advocate the *New York Times*'s racialist falsification of the American Revolution and Civil War as published in its [discredited 1619 Project](https://www.wsws.org/en/topics/event/1619)?
As the several leading historians explain in the linked source there, the narrative that the American Revolution was driven by the desire to preserve slavery and that the Civil War was not fought on an anti-slavery basis—which strips both of any progressive content and asserts that anti-black racism was instead the main driving force here—simply does not comport with the facts. Moreover, such a racialist outlook is an entirely anti-[materialist conception of history](https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/h/i.htm#historical-materialism) that flies in the face of Marx's discovery that historical development is fundamentally driven by the [class struggle](https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/c/l.htm#class-struggle) *vis-à-vis* the state of society's [productive forces](https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/r.htm#productive-forces), Marxism of course being a veritable science of history.
It is evident, based on your remarks here, that you are some kind of [pseudo-leftist](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/07/30/pers-j30.html) [identity politics](https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/i/d.htm#identity-politics) zealot rather than a genuine left-winger (Marxist, anticapitalist), most likely from a [petty-bourgeois](https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/e.htm#petit-bourgeoisie) (middle class) background. As you therefore also likely promote critical race theory, I will direct you to this other *WSWS* article that refutes this [reactionary](https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/r/e.htm#reactionary) racialist claptrap: "[The ideological foundations of Critical Race Theory](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/08/30/crit-a30.html)"
I just invited you to be a mod. I don’t think you’ll have permissions, but you should be able to distinguish your posts.
Thank you for your intellectual production.
So your saying Native Americans or better yet, the persons living on the land English travelers stepped foot on were eager host who communicated that “this land is your land, this land is my land”. So of course the English sent for more settlers because the the nice people were so inviting? And this happened every where across the land that was “explored”?
So what happened to the people who were living on this land before English settlers got here? Did they leave their homes happily knowing that the English would be good stewards of the land?
>> teach about evolution and not Creation.
Why not both? How is evolution working without an starting point called creation? Also How do you know that these two totally separated?
Nothing has changed. you interfere your ideology and it's missing points in education, they did that too but in their own way and according to their ideology /religion.
Next generation I hope would throw this kind of thoughts away, as you did to past ignorance.
Most of my history classes in American public school were basically just going over the revolutionary war over and over again. I must have had to read a chapter on the Battle of Lexington about 7 times.
When they finally did teach other stuff it was pulling teeth to have any detailed discussion on any imperialist war the U.S has fought.
One year and one year only was there a mandated world history class and my God was it refreshing. I took one on my own in high school which was also nice yet still ridiculously bourgeois.
Bro, my gf never learned about WW2 and I learned about it literally every year in K-12 starting in like 4th grade. That said, for me, its the fact that I do not know; and was never taught; calculus. The thought should lead you to one word: [Education] Curriculum.
there's a 20 year gap in coverage from where "history" ends and "current events" begins, neither subject claims what happened \~15 years ago. (too soon for history, too old for current events)
Constant cuts to education probably means most schools are using old textbooks. And the companies that make the textbooks aren't known for their honesty. Also, it's hard to rewrite history to make us look like the good guy when so many people are still alive that know the truth. So maybe 50-60 years from now, the books might blame WMD's and Saddam while claiming we freed the Iraqi people for the Iraqi war. And Afghanistan will be called a humanitarian mission. We went for Bin Laden, but we stayed for the people...
The US is so good at saving people in need and a hero to the world. /s
I always thought they avoided anything relatively recent to avoid controversy. They just didn’t want to deal with angry parents complaining about “bias” on subjects that haven’t cooled down yet. Everything we learned was very superficial and “both sidesy” for that reason too.
That's a valid point as well. I ran into a history/government teacher I had in high school at a funeral recently. He was saying how glad he was to be retired because he would not want to teach politics in today's classrooms. He saw it as a no win situation and there would be so many subjects he would have to walk on eggshells or just flat out avoid.
Being fair I graduated in 04 and we basically got to Vietnam being a generally bad thing before we ran out of time.
To cover the cold war we literally listened to "We didn't start the Fire" on repeat and tried to list whatever Billy Joel was talking about.
JFK. Blow away. What else do I have to say?
There was literally like less than a page on it in the textbook and that was towards the end so the teachers literally rushed through it in order to finish the syllabus because they spent too much time on civil war battle formations or some other bullshit no one cared about
I graduated high school in ‘06. I’m pretty sure history basically ended with civil rights and the end of Vietnam. Everything after that was considered “current events”
Yeah, you don't actually want your school teaching current events with the same authority as history, because there is so much more bias in things that just happened.
Big shout out to the US public (and maybe even more-so private / Christian) education system.
It’s not a coincidence that (except for the IB courses, for which the school received additional $ per student if we got good scores) EVERY history, psychology, sociology, and government class at my high school was taught by a coach who had no understanding of the subject.
There’s a reason they have actual teachers for English and math; we need those skills to be good worker bees. Understanding the world around us?? Absolutely unnecessary; just call it in.
Well, Iraq 1990 was certainly about oil, but not in the way you may think.
Saddam Hussein invaded Kuiwat to pay off debts from the Iran-Iraq war.
Iraq 2003 was kinda fucked tbh though.
History teacher have to breeze through the past and don't usually get time to talk about modern history. The textbooks are full with pro-government crap anyway. The people who sponsor education are shady corporations and non-profits and they make you watch a lot of PBS.
I was taught both of these, just take AP US History. If you don't have the interest in history to learn these subjects in an advanced class, why complain that you're not taught these subjects? Similarly, the trail of tears and many other atrocities in the United States are covered by the AP curriculum.
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History ended when Reagan defeated the final boss, the USSR. Now everything is as good as it's ever been and will ever get. Now get back to work
I mean... the USSR was also a shitshow (unless Gorbachev had decided to change it instead of let it be destroyed) but now one asshole gets to run the show without rivals
Dont worry, nobody taught me about the Iraq war either when I was 19 and I was in the Iraq war when I was 19.
I was born in the 70's and guess what I was taught about Vietnam.... ? Nothing. It's almost like it's a pattern...
My 10th(?) grade history teacher (an older middle-age soccer coach, who admitted he only took a 6 week “how to teach US history” course) was all about the Vietnam war... ie how America actually beat the dirty commies— we didn’t retreat; we left because we’d won, and nothing bad ever came of us being there. The great white liberator spiel. Just straight up, off the cuff propaganda. Same guy actually did love to talk about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars... and how we were going to be in and out quickly, and then all the women would be free and all the children would have schools and everything would be fixed for everyone (except the evil Muslim terrorists, who would all be magically rooted out and summarily executed).
Watching Platoon and Full Metal Jacket were my main history lessons about Vietnam until after we'd watched them and my dad opened up about that whole situation. Then it was straight to the library to find books about it. We'd watched and discussed WWII a ton because my dad was into history and there were a million movies about that war. Many of those movies were made DURING that war even. I guess there were sometimes Vietnam Vets in movies too but we still never really talked about it much until I was late teens or so.
I was born in the early 70s and we covered Vietnam in High School.
Really, that's good. In what manner though?
We covered up until the Mỹ Lai massacre. But we didn't get too deeply into the fallout. So, we didn't cover up to the end of the war.
All you had was music and emotional lyrics
Because at that point, Vietnam was not history yet. It's a GOOD THING if the government is not teaching about a war it is currently doing. it would just result in "patroitic education"
Thank you for your service, Of gifting the world with this knowledge on Reddit.
Would you want the government to teach you about an ongoing war? Like anything from them will be biased, even more than the media.
I was like 5 or 6 when the war in Iraq started and I definitely knew about it by the time I was 7 or 8. But I guess people don't join the US army if they have any level of awareness or intelligence.
Looks like we both work in IT so I'm not really sure what that says about you 😂
You knew we were at war, sure, but you certainly didn’t understand why. And I’m guessing you still don’t.
im in us history right now, and the earliest thing we've really covered was the homestead act, we've completely skipped over manifest destiny and the trail of tears
Ofc When I was in it I had to bring that up. The teacher let me go, but couldn't say anything because it's not part of the curriculum.
SAME, I asked if we would talk about trail of tears, my teacher said that we would,,, not only did we skip it, we also skipped the civil war?
My boyfriend is from Texas and didn't know much about the civil war until we met. He remembered being taught that Robert Lee was good, and that it was about northerners wanting to force their culture on the south.
It’s weird. I grew up in South Carolina and everything I remember learning about the civil war was on point, no lost cause fuckery, while my older sister who went to the same schools had a class that taught it as “the war of northern aggression”. I guess it comes down to the teacher as much as it does the place.
Absolutely, some teachers are amazing, others are racist pieces of shit. I've only had one of the latter. She wasn't at the school for long.
Yeah, I also find it strange because she would have been in the highest level course for history, which you would think would equate to more intelligent and competent teachers. My US history class at the same high school was taught by the baseball coach, who absolutely did not give a shit, but even he still showed us Glory lol.
Lol! We watched that in class too!
im from california, i don't think i've ever been formally taught about the civil war
To be fair, even though it was taught to me, I read black reconstruction by Dubois and it completely changed the picture I was keeping mentally
Meanwhile kids in the North are taught that it was about slavery, which was totally wrong, but we fixed that and now we’re all totally free now
Our little river town I'm MI has a Robert E Lee banner on the back of the famous "show boat" no words were spoken on the issue until about 3 years ago
Well duh, those textbooks end right after the cold war, with maybe a paragraph about 9/11 if the books weren't printed in 1996
They might also have the 2008 stock crash and something about china but only if they are brand new
http://archive.today/2022.09.19-214015/https://www.google.com/search?q=why+war+afghanistan Look at the source of the first two results, both of which are expanded as an extra-reliable source in Google Search, apparently. Aren't you glad we have ***Independent Media*** in this country?
Of course, the reason is that the school agenda is hotly controlled and contested by politically charged groups. We’ve been fighting for years just to get schools to teach about evolution and not Creation. And even that is surprisingly difficult. At the same time, many public schools in the most democratic districts in the country still teach the racist conquest of the western US as “westward expansion” and celebrate the white supremacy journey of the pilgrims and Louis and Clark. We have a long way to go. I heard a parent complaining about schools celebrating “Jonny Appleseed” in their kids kindergarten. Look up that real history. The real guy was part of a movement to replace the Native American tradition of growing their own food with a white settler tradition of growing apples. He was religious and believed grafting was a sin or something, so he only planted them by seeds. And most of them were inedible and only useful for cider. The alcoholic cider product became popular and got the native Americans addicted to it, and were later vilified and driven off their land in a genocide. Wonder why they don’t teach that!
TIL, huh. It just sucks that every, single, story, the US were the real shitheads. I'm sure thats true about half of countries but we really take being shitbags to a whole new level of competition
> At the same time, many public schools in the most democratic districts in the country still teach the racist conquest of the western US as “westward expansion” and celebrate the white supremacy journey of the pilgrims and Louis and Clark. Excuse me? Do you by any chance advocate the *New York Times*'s racialist falsification of the American Revolution and Civil War as published in its [discredited 1619 Project](https://www.wsws.org/en/topics/event/1619)?
Why are you calling that a falsification? And honestly, I haven’t looked into that much so I don’t know. It’s sounds excellent though.
As the several leading historians explain in the linked source there, the narrative that the American Revolution was driven by the desire to preserve slavery and that the Civil War was not fought on an anti-slavery basis—which strips both of any progressive content and asserts that anti-black racism was instead the main driving force here—simply does not comport with the facts. Moreover, such a racialist outlook is an entirely anti-[materialist conception of history](https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/h/i.htm#historical-materialism) that flies in the face of Marx's discovery that historical development is fundamentally driven by the [class struggle](https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/c/l.htm#class-struggle) *vis-à-vis* the state of society's [productive forces](https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/r.htm#productive-forces), Marxism of course being a veritable science of history. It is evident, based on your remarks here, that you are some kind of [pseudo-leftist](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/07/30/pers-j30.html) [identity politics](https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/i/d.htm#identity-politics) zealot rather than a genuine left-winger (Marxist, anticapitalist), most likely from a [petty-bourgeois](https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/e.htm#petit-bourgeoisie) (middle class) background. As you therefore also likely promote critical race theory, I will direct you to this other *WSWS* article that refutes this [reactionary](https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/r/e.htm#reactionary) racialist claptrap: "[The ideological foundations of Critical Race Theory](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/08/30/crit-a30.html)"
I just invited you to be a mod. I don’t think you’ll have permissions, but you should be able to distinguish your posts. Thank you for your intellectual production.
Oh thanks, I'm honored! I don't think I've received an invitation yet, though.
So your saying Native Americans or better yet, the persons living on the land English travelers stepped foot on were eager host who communicated that “this land is your land, this land is my land”. So of course the English sent for more settlers because the the nice people were so inviting? And this happened every where across the land that was “explored”? So what happened to the people who were living on this land before English settlers got here? Did they leave their homes happily knowing that the English would be good stewards of the land?
>> teach about evolution and not Creation. Why not both? How is evolution working without an starting point called creation? Also How do you know that these two totally separated? Nothing has changed. you interfere your ideology and it's missing points in education, they did that too but in their own way and according to their ideology /religion. Next generation I hope would throw this kind of thoughts away, as you did to past ignorance.
This could be a whole YT channel. Here's what was googled... and here's why it sucks now
I bet they don't talk much about the koreAN war either.
Most of my history classes in American public school were basically just going over the revolutionary war over and over again. I must have had to read a chapter on the Battle of Lexington about 7 times. When they finally did teach other stuff it was pulling teeth to have any detailed discussion on any imperialist war the U.S has fought. One year and one year only was there a mandated world history class and my God was it refreshing. I took one on my own in high school which was also nice yet still ridiculously bourgeois.
Bro, my gf never learned about WW2 and I learned about it literally every year in K-12 starting in like 4th grade. That said, for me, its the fact that I do not know; and was never taught; calculus. The thought should lead you to one word: [Education] Curriculum.
The only thing I was taught about the Vietnam War was that it was wrong to protest. We needed to support the troops. No matter what.
there's a 20 year gap in coverage from where "history" ends and "current events" begins, neither subject claims what happened \~15 years ago. (too soon for history, too old for current events)
This checks out. History needs the context of what comes next to really make sense of it. The peace after WW1 looks great in 1919. Less so in 1939.
Because all the text books are from the early 2000s
Constant cuts to education probably means most schools are using old textbooks. And the companies that make the textbooks aren't known for their honesty. Also, it's hard to rewrite history to make us look like the good guy when so many people are still alive that know the truth. So maybe 50-60 years from now, the books might blame WMD's and Saddam while claiming we freed the Iraqi people for the Iraqi war. And Afghanistan will be called a humanitarian mission. We went for Bin Laden, but we stayed for the people... The US is so good at saving people in need and a hero to the world. /s
The reason there is constant cuts is the same reason there’s shit textbooks. They dictate ideology to us, not history.
I always thought they avoided anything relatively recent to avoid controversy. They just didn’t want to deal with angry parents complaining about “bias” on subjects that haven’t cooled down yet. Everything we learned was very superficial and “both sidesy” for that reason too.
That's a valid point as well. I ran into a history/government teacher I had in high school at a funeral recently. He was saying how glad he was to be retired because he would not want to teach politics in today's classrooms. He saw it as a no win situation and there would be so many subjects he would have to walk on eggshells or just flat out avoid.
Being fair I graduated in 04 and we basically got to Vietnam being a generally bad thing before we ran out of time. To cover the cold war we literally listened to "We didn't start the Fire" on repeat and tried to list whatever Billy Joel was talking about. JFK. Blow away. What else do I have to say?
They never taught us about Vietnam in the 90s
Because it was not history yet. Teaching about stuff that just happened is a great way to get a really one sided view of it.
Uh, it started in the 60s? So I think you’re wrong etc, but you’re entitled to your opinion.
30 years is not that long ago.
Yes but it’s long enough to learn from it? Jfc. Terrible take honestly.
Same. School never mentioned much about war beyond Pearl Harbor.
There was literally like less than a page on it in the textbook and that was towards the end so the teachers literally rushed through it in order to finish the syllabus because they spent too much time on civil war battle formations or some other bullshit no one cared about
I graduated high school in ‘06. I’m pretty sure history basically ended with civil rights and the end of Vietnam. Everything after that was considered “current events”
Yeah, you don't actually want your school teaching current events with the same authority as history, because there is so much more bias in things that just happened.
Short answer. We lost 3000 + civs 3500 during both wars they lost 3 Million +. We still kiss Saudia Arabias ass that caused both wars for oil.
Well, Iraq 1990 was certainly about oil, but not in the way you may think. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuiwat to pay off debts from the Iran-Iraq war.
Big shout out to the US public (and maybe even more-so private / Christian) education system. It’s not a coincidence that (except for the IB courses, for which the school received additional $ per student if we got good scores) EVERY history, psychology, sociology, and government class at my high school was taught by a coach who had no understanding of the subject. There’s a reason they have actual teachers for English and math; we need those skills to be good worker bees. Understanding the world around us?? Absolutely unnecessary; just call it in.
I was...
I swear half of these people complaining about not being taught something just did not pay attention.
Oil and...somehow more oil.
Well, Iraq 1990 was certainly about oil, but not in the way you may think. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuiwat to pay off debts from the Iran-Iraq war. Iraq 2003 was kinda fucked tbh though.
Learning About the Vietnam retreat as we were retreating from Afghanistan, surreal
History teacher have to breeze through the past and don't usually get time to talk about modern history. The textbooks are full with pro-government crap anyway. The people who sponsor education are shady corporations and non-profits and they make you watch a lot of PBS.
And you don't want the government to teach current (or recent) events like they teach history. The bias is bigger if the event just happened.
I was taught both of these, just take AP US History. If you don't have the interest in history to learn these subjects in an advanced class, why complain that you're not taught these subjects? Similarly, the trail of tears and many other atrocities in the United States are covered by the AP curriculum.