About Historians And History

Several days ago I sent out a piece on how the writings about history are subject to revision by historians more interested in conveying a message than reporting the facts.  Since sending that note, further items that illustrate that point have arisen.  Here are a few I would like to share.

This item provides historical facts regarding the close relationship that has existed between banks and presidential administrations and how powerful bankers have influenced administration policy that upon implementation were helpful to banks and their bottom lines, and not so good for the nation.   http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard66.html

This item reviews the history of bankers financing wars both those for and against America's national interests.  Here is one example.  General Smedley Butler, author of War is a Racket.  Quote:  "The most decorated Marine in history, Smedley Butler, described fighting for U.S. banks in many of the wars he fought in. He said: “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/04/wars-bankers-wars.html

This item reflects on the manner in which the government is trying to influence education in such a way as to denigrate much of our past, promote liberal philosophies and downgrade many of the founders of this country by ignoring them and their role in our nation's history.  There are far too many accounts of this matter to deny it is happening.   http://townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/2014/12/12/termites-at-work-on-american-history-n1930711/page/full

Another item from the above link.  "In Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins describes how World Bank and IMF loans are used to generate profits for U.S. business and saddle countries with huge debts that allow the United States to control them. It is not surprising that former civilian military leaders like Robert McNamara and Paul Wolfowitz went on to head the World Bank. These nations’ debt to international banks ensures they are controlled by the United States, which pressures them into joining the “coalition of the willing” that helped invade Iraq or allowing U.S. military bases on their land. If countries refuse to “honor” their debts, the CIA or Department of Defense enforces U.S. political will through coups or military action."  I have read the book and it is a real eye opener.  http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/04/wars-bankers-wars.html

This book compiled from Herbert Hoovers post war writings tells quite a different story than the predominant histories surrounding the FDR era.   http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/12/patrick-j-buchanan/did-fdr-provoke-pearl-harbor-2/

Yet another quote:  "Many historians now recognize that a hidden history for U.S. entry into World War I was to protect U.S. investors. U.S. commercial interests had invested heavily in European allies before the war: “By 1915, American neutrality was being criticized as bankers and merchants began to loan money and offer credits to the warring parties, although the Central Powers received far less. Between 1915 and April 1917, the Allies received 85 times the amount loaned to Germany.” The total dollars loaned to all Allied borrowers during this period was $2,581,300,000. The bankers saw that if Germany won, their loans to European allies would not be repaid. The leading U.S. banker of the era, J.P. Morgan and his associates did everything they could to push the United States into the war on the side of England and France. Morgan said: “We agreed that we should do all that was lawfully in our power to help the Allies win the war as soon as possible.” President Woodrow Wilson, who campaigned saying he would keep the United States out of war, seems to have entered the war to protect U.S. banks’ investments in Europe."

I have been challenged when noting that American bankers funded Hitler's build up.  But this item documents the who, what, when and how such things happened.  Quote: "We have demonstrated with documentary evidence a number of critical associations between Wall Street international bankers and the rise of Hitler and Nazism in Germany.  First: that Wall Street financed the German cartels in the mid-1920s which in turn proceeded to bring Hitler to power. Second: that the financing for Hitler and his S.S. street thugs came in part from affiliates or subsidiaries of U.S. firms, including Henry Ford in 1922, payments by I.G. Farben and General Electric in 1933, followed by the Standard Oil of New Jersey and I.T.T. subsidiary payments to Heinrich Himmler up to 1944. Third: that U.S. multi-nationals under the control of Wall Street profited handsomely from Hitler's military construction program in the 1930s and at least until 1942. Fourth: that these same international bankers used political influence in the U.S. to cover up their wartime collaboration and to do this infiltrated the U.S. Control Commission for Germany."  And, "The arena for this debate and the basis for our charges of subversion is the evidence provided by the revisionist historian. Slowly, over decades, book by book, almost line by line, the truth of recent history has emerged as documents are released, probed, analyzed, and set within a more valid historical framework." 

http://www.reformation.org/wall-st-hitler.html

Barclays will be repaying Jewish depositors or their heirs for confiscated funds from their bank accounts.   Quote: "Recently unclassified reports from the US Treasury about the activities of Chase in Paris in the 1940s indicate that the local branch worked "in close collaboration with the German authorities" in freezing Jewish assets."  Seven other banks are involved in the lawsuit.  "British-based bank during World War II. Barclays, along with seven French banks, was named in a lawsuit filed in New York on behalf of Jews who were unable to reclaim money they deposited during the Nazi era."   http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/07/big-banks-funded-the-nazis-and-launched-a-coup-against-the-president-of-the-united-states.html

Quote:  "Today, 70 years after Pearl Harbor, a remarkable secret history, written from 1943 to 1963, has come to light. It is Hoover’s explanation of what happened before, during and after the world war that may prove yet the death knell of the West.  Edited by historian George Nash, “Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover’s History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath” is a searing indictment of FDR and the men around him as politicians who lied prodigiously about their desire to keep America out of war, even as they took one deliberate step after another to take us into war."   http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/12/patrick-j-buchanan/did-fdr-provoke-pearl-harbor-2/
 
As early as the 1920s powerful US agencies were involved in developing eugenics concepts and later funded Nazi eugenics programs.  Quote:  "Eugenics would have been so much bizarre parlor talk had it not been for extensive financing by corporate philanthropies, specifically the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune. They were all in league with some of America's most respected scientists from such prestigious universities as Stanford, Yale, Harvard and Princeton. These academicians espoused race theory and race science, and then faked and twisted data to serve eugenics' racist aims."  http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Eugenics-and-the-Nazis-the-California-2549771.php

I love reading history as I am sure many of you do.  My concern is that some of us read and seemingly believe what is written is not only true but complete and accurate.  That may be true but the unfortunate truth is that it is not always the case.  Historians are no different than we are.  They make mistakes, misinterpret things, embellish things, omit things, alter things according to their political, cultural or religious biases and even rewrite things in a way that reflects what they want past history to be for whatever their reasons.  None of us should be so sure of what we know about history to dismiss the real possibility that at least some of what we thought we knew may not be correct.

George Burns