That puts you on the slippery slope to a revisionist understanding of America’s historical role — not as the 19th-century beacon of liberty or the 20th-century democratic powerhouse but as a slave-driving, Indian-killing, imperial exploiter. After all, the acquisitions of the territories that became Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Missouri were also key to the building of the southern “Slave empire” (and involved the forcible displacement of the Indian tribes). Revisionists are also happy to point out that the Mexican War was an imperial struggle, as was the campaign to acquire Oregon and the War with Spain and the subsequent campaign to suppress Filipino rebels. Moving right along, the wars of the 20th century merely positioned the American hegemon better to fill the gaps left by European colonialists and subjugate half the Third World, right? And as Rev. Wright put it succinctly, “Hiroshima, Hiroshima!”

I’m aware of all the uncomfortable truths about our past but remain eager to point out that in retrospect, we did in fact build the Empire of Liberty imagined by Franklin and others and directly and indirectly liberated a large part of humankind.

I’m not out to lecture or wallow in sentimental patriotism but merely to point out that Texas worked out very nicely and might not have done without the sacrifices of the Texas Revolution, even if some of those laying down their lives were actual or wannabe slaveholders. After all, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Jackson were slaveholders, too.

Just as surely as there is a way to delegitimize “remembering the Alamo” and “remembering the Maine,” there is a way to do the same to Pearl Harbor. Indeed, it is already under way as you can see easily if you read that Times op-ed by Bradley.

Um…there is no dispute that the government knew we were going to be attacked. The idea they knew it was going to be Pearl Harbor has been debunked too many times to count. There was no “sacrifice” of our ships or men because the military believed the target was probably going to be the East Indies or, as a longshot, the Philippines.

ed.

One word defines the difference: Leadership. In crisis, most of us eagerly follow a leader, someone who has a plan and can articulate it.

Question answered.

ed.

And we’re well into a process of transforming Pearl Harbor into another lesson in American misbehavior, led as we are by a President who ostentatiously bowed to the som of Hirohito. Worse, The New York Times saw fit to publish an op-ed Saturday by the author James Bradley (the son of one of the Iwo Jima flag raisers, no less) in which Bradley set forth the ludicrous proposition that Theodore Roosevelt’s pro-Japan dilpomacy early in the century enabled and propelled the Japanese imperialism that came crashing down on Pearl Harbor 35 years or so later. While Bradley didn’t explicitly say, “chickens coming home to roost,” that was the plain meaning of his op-ed. That the Japanese Empire needed no encouragement from Roosevelt to make war on Russia and seize Korea or later from his cousin to make war on China and seize Manchuria seems to escape Bradley.

A few more years, and we’ll see even more absurd revisionism.

And, Rick, I noticed that you left out the Alamo! Isn’t that because it’s already become settled in adademe that a bunch of white southern racist slaveholders perished at the Alamo as they tried to steal Texas from Mexico?

Is the Alamo truly “American?” Those guys were not fighting for the US - they were fighting for the Republic of Texas. The revisionist take is actually not too bad considering that many - not a majority - of the Americanos in Texas were, in fact, southern slave holders who felt they were furthering the ambitions of southern nationalists in establishing a “Slave empire” that would include most of central and south America. There was an organized effort to homestead Texas with people who believed in that dream.

Can’t help it sometimes if historical facts are uncomfortable.

ed.