Rewriting history

imageIt’s a popular topic in fiction, the most recent example is the series, the “Man in the High Castle,” an alternative history where the Nazis won World War II, and rewrote American history in their own image. Paul Vaulin, one of my college professors and a Russian émigré, talked about how new pages were sent out to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia implementing required changes to history dictated by the Soviet High Council of Ministers.

Birthers want to erase Barack Obama from American history, Obama the 44th (not really) president. Barring some future political cataclysm, bringing about the thought control of Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” or the destruction of literature as in  Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451,” I think Obama’s legacy is safe.

About Dr. Conspiracy

I'm not a real doctor, but I have a master's degree.
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25 Responses to Rewriting history

  1. Pete says:

    Ironically (or perhaps not), their method involves accusing others of doing what they themselves are attempting to do.

    In their revisionist version of history, Obama was not born in Hawaii. They accuse him of having altered a historical document in order to appear eligible.

    Other birthers also accuse those who accurately read Constitutional and legal history of having altered it from their imagined past.

  2. Rickey says:

    Pete:
    Ironically (or perhaps not), their method involves accusing others of doing what they themselves are attempting to do.

    In their revisionist version of history, Obama was not born in Hawaii. They accuse him of having altered a historical document in order to appear eligible.

    Other birthers also accuse those who accurately read Constitutional and legal history of having altered it from their imagined past.

    And then there were the claims that Obama admitted in the first edition of “Dreams From My Father” that he was born in Kenya, but that all copies of that edition somehow disappeared.

    And the claims that Obama admitted that he wasn’t a natural-born citizen when he debated Alan Keyes in 2004, but all video and audio of the debate was scrubbed.

    And the microfilm copies of the Hawaii birth announcements were altered, presumably in every library in the country which keeps the Hawaii newspapers on microfilm.

    etc., etc., etc.

  3. bob says:

    And all those textbooks birthers had read that stated that natural-born citizenship required birth in the United States to two citizen parents. Yet, in the past eight years, no such textbook has ever been found.

  4. Rickey says:

    bob:
    And all those textbooks birthers had read that stated that natural-born citizenship required birth in the United States to two citizen parents.Yet, in the past eight years, no such textbook has ever been found.

    Obviously there was a massive book-burning event which the Obots managed to keep secret.

  5. Didn’t you get your invitation? We had a hell of a time. We all danced naked around the fire and chanted “Hail Obama!”.

    Rickey: Obviously there was a massive book-burning event which the Obots managed to keep secret.

  6. Pete says:

    Reality Check:
    Didn’t you get your invitation? We had a hell of a time. We all danced naked around the fire and chanted “Hail Obama!”.

    Crap. And I missed it.

  7. The story started as “I saw this on live TV, but on the replay it’s been scrubbed,” then changed to Obama this to Keyes backstage. I don’t think Keyes ever said this happened.

    Rickey: And the claims that Obama admitted that he wasn’t a natural-born citizen when he debated Alan Keyes in 2004, but all video and audio of the debate was scrubbed.

  8. Lupin says:

    The problem your country faces is that this is not limited to a handful of lunatics.

    Just in the news this morning:

    Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint, on CNN now, dismissing Obamacare statistics as “fake news.” The statistics came from CBO.

    At least 50 Trump electors may have been illegally seated including 7 in NC for things like not living in the district or holding dual offices. But it won’t make any difference because Republicans will still certify the Electoral College vote.

    Mitch McConnell: Americans Won’t Tolerate Democrats Blocking Supreme Court Nominations.

    Sean Hannity: Who do you believe? Julian Assange or President Obama and Hillary Clinton?

    GOP grants Hill staffers authority to question private citizens under oath.

    And that’s just from a brief perusal of this morning’s headlines. Egad.

    You debate about the First amendment when your country is turning into Zimbabwe. Let me say again that there is at least a decent argument to be made that you could have stopped all of this if you’d stamped on the roaches earlier.

  9. Cody Judy says:

    Side Note
    https://twitter.com/CodyRobertJudy/status/814152728960057344

    If Obama’s safe in history it will be with the footnote
    BIRTHERS

    It can’t help but be an ironic twist of Glory for Birthers that a pajorative will live on and be recalled with Obama like [Birther] maybe even better well known then his middle name.

    And yet what success of Birthers can be pointed to for that honor?

    No Court cases won. No Hearings in Congress. No Elected Official. ( wait.. Trump doesn’t count as a Birther anymore right?😂)

    I mean no movies made about them. No songs or Famous Endorsements.. how exactly did Birthers manage to become known better than Obama’s Middle name?

    It’s quite a fascinating phenomenon that as Doc puts it people of “low moral character” have come to be tied to the hip of Obama.

    Maybe there is a reason for that?

    You can keep your Doctor😂
    Your Health Care Premium won’t be higher than $2,500.00😂
    Donald J. Trump will not be President😂
    I found out about Hillary’s Server the same way you did😂
    I don’t know who Cody Robert Judy is😂

    @RepJerryNadler @JimPressOffice @RepJohnConyers @BobGoodlatte6
    FailedJustice #Congress #SCOTUS 14-9396 #KELLYFILE
    https://t.co/dvB9QdQDlz

    https://twitter.com/CodyRobertJudy/status/815241152320258048

    For those who thought Trump was not in on it.. here’s something to think about.
    https://youtu.be/ANqhpkkVH8s

  10. Joey says:

    Cody Judy:
    Side Note
    https://twitter.com/CodyRobertJudy/status/814152728960057344

    If Obama’s safe in history it will be with the footnote
    BIRTHERS

    It can’t help but be an ironic twist of Glory for Birthers that a pajoratives will live on and be recalled with Obama like Birther maybe even better well known then his middle name.

    And yet what success of Birthers can be pointed to for that honor?

    No Court cases won. No Hearings in Congress. No Elected Official. ( wait.. Trump doesn’t count as a Birther anymore right?)

    I mean no movies made about them. No songs or Famous Endorsements.. how exactly did Birthers manage to become known better than Obama’s Middle name?

    It’s quite a fascinating phenomenon that as Doc puts it people of “low moral character” have come to be tied to the hip of Obama.

    Maybe there is a reason for that?

    You can keep your Doctor
    Your Health Care Premium won’t be higher than $2,500.00
    Donald J. Trump will not be President
    I found out about Hillary’s Server the same way you did
    I don’t know who Cody Robert Judy is

    @RepJerryNadler @JimPressOffice @RepJohnConyers @BobGoodlatte6
    FailedJustice #Congress #SCOTUS 14-9396 #KELLYFILE
    https://t.co/dvB9QdQDlz

    https://twitter.com/CodyRobertJudy/status/815241152320258048

    For those who thought Trump was not in on it.. here’s something to think about.
    https://youtu.be/ANqhpkkVH8s

    Cody Judy has a very firm grasp of the obvious. Every president, from Washington to President-Elect Trump has his negatives and his positives. For example, which President ordered the Army to shoot and kill American farmers who opposed the imposition of new federal taxes. [George Washington: The Whiskey Rebellion].

    It is what the American people think of a president during his time in office that matters. The first accurate gauge of that is do the American people choose to fire or rehire a president for a second term.

    A second modern day measurement is a president’s job approval rating. Using today’s presidential approval ratings from the conservative pollster “Rasmussen Reports,” Barack Obama’s job approval rating for Thursday, January 5, 2017 is 58% approval and 41% disapproval.
    http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/prez_track_jan5

    The Pulitzer Prize winning investigative unit of the Tampa Bay Times, “Politifact” has documented 62 bald faced lies (“Pants on Fire”) told by Donald Trump. That’s 18% of his public statements. http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/

    And finally, the Gallup Poll: “Obama Bests Trump as Most Admired Man in 2016”
    http://www.gallup.com/poll/200771/obama-bests-trump-admired-man-2016.aspx?g_source=Politics&g_medium=newsfeed&g_campaign=tiles

  11. Northland10 says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    The story started as “I saw this on live TV, but on the replay it’s been scrubbed,” then changed to Obama this to Keyes backstage. I don’t think Keyes ever said this happened.

    IIRC, Keyes own staff denied that it was ever said.

  12. Voice of Reason says:

    Cody Judy thinks that Obama knows who he is.

    oh good lord I’m laffing

    you are a meaningless, delusional joke

  13. Dr. Kenneth Noisewater says:

    Cody Judy: blah blah blah

    There should be a new rule Doc if Cody gets to plug himself he has to stop blocking people from commenting on his blogs and twitter. For instance he blocked me for calling out his poor photoshop skills where he dressed himself up like a dictator of a banana republic and had a bunch of undeserved metals on him.

  14. bob says:

    Joey: If Obama’s safe in history it will be with the footnote
    BIRTHERS

    Birthers have gone from dreaming about removing the sitting president to dreaming about a non-existent footnote in an existential tome.

  15. Crustacean says:

    It’s an interesting debate, Lupin, and I thank you for influencing me to think about the topic more than I probably ever have.

    Your comments have certainly affected my opinion – and thanks for that, too. But this one is a miss. Zimbabwe restricts freedom of the press, and their Constitution is another easily amended document that was recently changed to allow Mugabe to appoint officials to what were previously elected positions.

    I said in an earlier comment that I should know better than to debate a Sorbonne educated attorney, but I can be a stubborn SOB. A year ago I debated my father-in-law about the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision – and he’s a federal judge.

    I won that debate, too. 🙂

    Lupin: You debate about the First amendment when your country is turning into Zimbabwe.

  16. RanTalbott says:

    Joey: The Pulitzer Prize winning investigative unit of the Tampa Bay Times, “Politifact” has documented 62 bald faced lies (“Pants on Fire”) told by Donald Trump.

    Important distinction: not all of those were lies. Many of Trump’s false statements are not intended to deceive, but are just products of his astonishing ignorance and gullibility. And you can be sure his followers will sometimes whack you with that distinction if you don’t make it, yourself. 😉

  17. suranis1 says:

    President Obama knows who Cody is, just like Cody is known across the Music industry, and Cody has cracked the top 100 in the charts. 🙂

    I wonder was Cody asked to sing at the white house Inauguration for the Gropenfuhrer? If not why not?

  18. suranis1 says:

    This. Frankly, IMO, the First amendment should not be interpreted as “freedom to lie about facts.” Otherwise it becomes a way to poison the country. The elimination of the fairness doctrine was when your country cut its own throat.

    These idiots should have been forcefully shut down.

    Lupin: You debate about the First amendment when your country is turning into Zimbabwe. Let me say again that there is at least a decent argument to be made that you could have stopped all of this if you’d stamped on the roaches earlier.

  19. Joey says:

    RanTalbott: Important distinction: not all of those were lies. Many of Trump’s false statements are not intended to deceive, but are just products of his astonishing ignorance and gullibility. And you can be sure his followers will sometimes whack you with that distinction if you don’t make it, yourself.

    Yeah, Poliifact accounts for that. False statements are in a different category from “Pants on Fire” statements. 33% of Trump’s pronouncements were false and 18% were Pants on Fire while another 18% were Mostly False.

  20. red-diaper-baby 1942 says:

    As a sidelight: I myself have witnessed an interesting episode of the rewriting of history. In 1956, when I was 14, we were living in what was then Czechoslovakia, and we were preparing for the nationwide exam at the end of middle school (this was important because a good score allowed you to take the entrance exam for senior secondary school, the “gymnasium”). We were doing mock exams in various subjects, including history, and we had a long list of topics to prepare for. This was soon after the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, where Khruschev had denounced the Stalinist “cult of the personality”. One morning the teacher came into class and told us to take out our lists and make certain changes: all questions concerning Stalin (and there were many) were to be crossed out.
    I didn’t pay much attention to this at the time, being a teenager and more concerned with quite other things, but looking back, I can’t help but wonder what that history teacher was thinking.

  21. RanTalbott says:

    red-diaper-baby 1942: I can’t help but wonder what that history teacher was thinking.

    My guess would be something along the lines of “It’s (bleep)ing cold in Siberia”. 😉

  22. CarlOrcas says:

    RanTalbott: Important distinction: not all of those were lies. Many of Trump’s false statements are not intended to deceive, but are just products of his astonishing ignorance and gullibility. And you can be sure his followers will sometimes whack you with that distinction if you don’t make it, yourself.

    I’m fascinated by the notion than an untruth born out of willful ignorance is somehow less wrong, less evil than one that is spoken intentionally.

    I think I tried that on my mother when I was 5 and it didn’t fly very far.

  23. J.D. Sue says:

    red-diaper-baby 1942: As a sidelight: I myself have witnessed an interesting episode of the rewriting of history. In 1956,


    This is such an interesting personal account. Thanks for sharing it.

  24. The Magic M (not logged in) says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: The story started as “I saw this on live TV, but on the replay it’s been scrubbed,”

    This is pretty common among cranks.
    My country’s favourite crank conspiracy theory (that the German state isn’t really the German state and that the Reich still exists and is the “true” German state, and that the “Federal Republic of Germany” is just some company incorporated in Frankfurt) has received that treatment as well, with people claiming they saw on late night TV (either an interview or a late session of parliament) how a high-ranking politican admitted that the German state wasn’t real and actually just a company.

  25. Notorial Dissent says:

    Its amazing what too much schnapps will do for you.

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