Welcome and thanks for being here, James.

Besides your book, here today, I also read, just before I read yours, the book, “The Big Burn” by Timothy Egan, who also deals with Roosevelt, but from a somewhat more admirable point of view. He details of course, Roosevelt’s and Gifford Pinchot’s journey in establishing the US Forest Service, which in itself, has moments that raises eyebrows, but also he recounts some of Teddy’s changes in other areas, like Child Labor Laws and the switch from appointing US Senators to electing them. I wondered why he, Roosevelt, became so enamored of forest protection, then I read your book, and it all began to make sense. Follow the sun.

The account you give of the years around 1905 really raised the hair on the back of my neck, and also generated a creeping sense of embarrassment as I realized how we have all been had. Changing a few names and places and event dates, say by 100 years, and we have Now.

So, it seems to me that the groundwork he laid is the groundwork that presidents have followed since. Lend-Lease in WWII has his signature, all the way to George Bush, who seemed to have enough of this secrecy stuff concerning snookering Congress and went full steam ahead, so to speak; business as usual for a US President. And Obama is not far behind.

The changes we need to make then, go far deeper than getting progressives in Congress or any such maneuvering, but go to the heart of our system of government. It is good, even great, but is too easily corrupted, and therein lie the needs for change.

I do have a question: Why is all this on TDR coming out now? What did you learn that seems to evade other writing, or at least, not to make a more comprehensive distribution of this information?

In other words,:
Why you?
Why now?

James, Welcome to the Lake.

Burt, Thank you for Hosting today’s Book Salon.

The New York Times review said “The Imperial Cruise is startling enough to reshape conventional wisdom about TR’s presidency?” That’s quite a statement.
Most people think of TR as one of our greats,
What image of TR did you have before you began your research?

I found that in 1905 TR dispatched the largest diplomatic delegation to Asia in US history . . . I wanted to find out what happened, and that’s how I stumbled on this story.

I had the image most people did .. . . Rough Rider, Mt. Rushmore, jocular, popular guy. What I found surprised me greatly.

Bev brings up interesting questions: In many ways Obama is certainly progressive, but in others, there seems to be a surprising reliance on same old same old. Including in Latin America, where there seems to be a reversion to Cold War US domination. TR was also certainly a progressive in many ways.
But in his foreign policy, did he pick up where his predecessors left us? In other words, was the idea of western white Christians bringing benevolent civilization in place before TR?

What’s curious to me is that it seems all the information is there on view, as I looked over your references. That the story took until now to “refresh” as it were, is a tribute to your persistence, but at the same time, damn, it’s 100 years later! Has there been new material released that was held back to a certain time a la the information not yet released on the JFK assassination?

What were some of the biggest, most significant surprises?

How about the missions in Texas to California?

The New York Times said there are no “secrets” in my book, which is true, just facts that Teddy biographers have chosen to ignore. The question: Why have so many ignored these truths up to now? I’d like to know!

Mr Bradley, I love your work. My old man spent WWII on a high speed transport (APD) and participated in 38 landings in the Pacific. I haven’t had the chance to read this book but I assume that, while TR may had an impact on the way the Japanese fought, their approach to war was deep seated. TR did not invent Bushido.

Good afternoon James and Burt and welcome to FDL.

James I have not had an opportunity to read your book but do have a question.

Given that Hawaii had become a protectorate/territory due to the overthrow of the monarchy in 1898 and the Philippines had become a territory after the Spanish-American War, and TR’s “Speak Softly and carry a big stick” why does this mission seem so surprising to many?

My biggest surprise is that the president of the US was making and explaining foreign policy with racial theory and I had never been taught that fact in school. It’s just whitewashed out of our history.

I’m not familiar with the specific “missions” but the impression I got from The Imperial Cruise was that, now that the white civilizers have followed the sun to the Pacific, there was no choice but to keep bringing civilization westward. And it got pretty ugly. Shocking, really, to me.

Reading Egan then yours back to back was a real test of suspension of disbelief!

Why do the Japanese ignore the truths about their behavior? Seems like it’s human nature to me.

TR did not invent Bushido, but he loved the Bushido and he encouraged Japan to expand into Asia. I was shocked to learn that the problem that FDR faced in WWII in the Pacific–Japanese expansionism–was cheerleaded by Theodore Roosevelt in the summer of 1905.

The same reason that Americans or anyone else ignore their failures. There is no explanation at the Vietnam Memorial for why those 54,000 died.

yeah: what is it about Americans that we so prefer sanitized myth to reality?
It’s not whitewashing that enlarges our freedom, but the truth. Thanks for doing your part, James. Seems we still have a great deal to learn.

I suppose we think we’re doing a good thing, like the British, bringing so-called civilization to other nations. But there are consequences for imposing our will on others.

Thank you for this excellent book.

Don’t know what you mean.
I wrote about the summer of 1905, Egan about entirely different times.

But really, we meant well, honest…

So the secret letters and diaries of TDR were know for some time? Just mind boggling. And talk about a mind fuck!

You’re welcome. Thanks for reading!!

The material in my book existed, of course. But “historians” collectively have chosen to hide of ignore, for their own reasons.

Japanese history seems more than a little sprinkled with periods of extremely warlike behavior — long before Teddy Roosevelt was born. My opinion is that technology had more to do with Japanese expansion than an American President telling them to do it. Japan did what they did when they did because they could.

James, were you as surprised, as I was to learn about the widespread use of waterboarding in bringing civilization to the Filipinos? Torture, rape, outright massacres seem to have been policy. Do you have evidence to believe it was policy?

The Big Burn was 1910, during his presidency. What I was alluding to is the difference in the picture one gets of TDR between his and yours.

That Japanese tradition of extreme warlike behavior that Splicer refers to, could that specifically have been a factor in TR deciding they were the true masters, the Aryan race of the Pacific??

Did you read THE IMPERIAL CRUISE? I think you’ll be very surprised to read how TR singled out the Japanese military as a force for Americanizing Asia.

If I wrote about TR and trees, the material in THE IMPERIAL CRUISE would not have come to the fore, because Teddy wasn’t talking about Japan and China to forestry people.

I was surprised, yes. I realized that the techniques used in the Philippines were the same the US army had used to “win” the American west. That’s the way it was.

I have not read it but my curiosity is piqued enough to do so. Certainly, Japan’s industrial might would have seemed extremely “American” to Roosevelt and businessmen the same way that Hitler’s Germany seemed attractive to the same bunch. I have no doubt that Roosevelt might have been fooled into thinking that Japan being like us industrially might be on “our side”.

Splicer–please read it and you can communicate to me later thru JamesBradley.com If you’re surprised by what you find, join the club, because I was shocked. Best. James

Everyone that visits there has to come to their own conclusion. What I have learned in the 40 years since I came home is that there is no more agreement now than there was when we threw our medals over the damn fence at Dewey Canyon III.

James you wrote about the Japanese and Korea. King Gojong assumed the US would protect his independent nation from Japan, as Ho Chi Minh assumed the US would stand with them against colonial France. What price was paid for TR’s turning a blind eye to Korea?

Yes, and that’s the same reason the Japanese have difficulty coming to simple conclusions about their actions.

Of course. My comments are directed towards how my thinking was shaped, then re-shaped. Had I not read Egan, I would have had a different response to yours. I had very little to go on about TR until these last two books.

The problem for the US in WWII in the Pacific was Japanese expansionism. We weren’t fighting against the invasion of the US.
Japanese expansionism began when TR sanctioned them expanding into Korea .. . so the first step in the chain of events that would pull my father out to Iwo Jima was cheerleaded by Theodore Roosevelt in the summer of 1905.

Got it. Thanks for reading!!

The Japanese refuse to admit atrocities in Korea, and China. Turkey refuses to acknowledge their atrocities against Armenians. To what extent has the US acknowledge atrocities in Vietnam? And the lies that got us into Iraq? In general what is value of recognizing the ugly truth; what do you say to those who say just let it be?

Makes one wonder what might have transpired had TR been around to advise FDR. Is there any indication that FDR was in possession of this same information during or before his presidency?

To those who say “let it be,” I say then that’s how it will always be.
War is an atrocity and we need to examine it’s roots to understand how it grows.

Thank you for doing the work. I am indebted to you! :-)

TR thought the Japanese would be limited by an American leash. When they decided to expand their own way, we clashed.

Burt, the first significant event by the VVAW was the Winter Solider Hearings in Detroit in 1971. The crux of that was testimony by veterans about war crimes in Vietnam. You see where that got us. The right wingers fought it tooth and nail and pounced on Kerry with their Swift Boat bullshit. We didn’t let it be but I’m not sure it mattered.

One can always find reminders in history.
I was sickened to read what struck me as parallels to Bush’s “Mission Accomplished,” this time in the Philippines. Could you shed a little light on that for those who have yet to read this incredible book?

The Treaty of Portsmouth, for which TR received the Nobel Peace Prize, truly screwed over the Koreans for the next 50 plus years and even fueled the flames of rebellion against the Tsar for the humiliating defeat and terms of peace after the Russo-Japanese War…!

Having not read the book, was that ‘cruise’ during the thick of battle…?

you are way ahead of the curve on this. I am first in the q for it at public library.

Theodore Roosevelt declared “Mission Accomplished” in the Philippines so many times that people lost count. He wanted it over for domestic consumption, but the fighting continued. US troops still fight in there, a century after Roosevelt.

Maybe an excerpt from the little ditty the American soldiers sang about the water treatment?

I remember that well. In fact I have the book from the Winder Soldier hearings. The government insists atrocities were few, were an aberration, and certainly were not policy. Kerry’s participation in that was one reason I jumped on his bandwagon in 04. I share your frustration, and it does seem to come back to myth blanketing truth. I wish more people would see the DVD “Sir, No Sir!” It seems to always be a determined minority that gets the truth out.
That’s one reason I hope Bradley’s book reaches a wide audience.

Didn’t Korea also get left off the map that they drew at Yalta telling?

The Russo-Japanese War was 1904-1905.
This cruise took place in the summer of 1905–after a lull in the fighting. The book documents that although the public and the Nobel Peace Prize Committee saw TR as a neutral force between Japan and Russia, he was acting as a secret agent of Japan. (Look in the book for him admitting it in a secret letter to his son.)

Keep your copy in good shape, there aren’t many of them! I also wish the would have released Winter Soldier (the dvd) during the campaign. When I contacted the Winterfilm group at that time they said the Kerry campaign asked them not to do so.

A popular U.S. Army marching song, “The Water Cure,” gleefully described the process:

Get the good old syringe boys and fill it to the brim. We’ve caught another n****r and we’ll operate on him. Let someone take the handle who can work it with a vim. Shouting the battle cry of freedom.

Chorus:
Hurray. Hurrah. We bring the Jubilee.
Hurray. Hurrah.
The flag that makes him free.
Shove in the nozzle deep and let him taste of liberty. Shouting the battle cry of freedom.

As I believe it was Queen Victoria who said: Balls! If I had ‘em I’d be king!

Same is true for Kerry.

James, I haven’t read your book — sorry, but my stack is over a yard high right now, and I am currently in the midst of Davis Aaronowitch’s “Voodoo Historians” — But did a PhD in American Studies focused on New Deal, and involved sorting out aspects of Progressive Era that translated into New Deal Practice.

Am convinced that on Domestic Policy, FDR surrounded himself with 2ne, 3rd and 4th Tier TR fans and Bull Moosers of various shades — but on Foreign Policy in Asia he is a child of the Delano Family, Two fortunes made in the Clipper Trade, one Lost, the other FDR inherited through his mother, and it made his political life possible. The Delano Family was resident in China for several decades — and he drew around him people with grand visions of China as a massive international trading partner. There is much evidence he was TR’s efforts on the margins of Asia (Korea, the Philippines, reminded him of the British practice of nibbling at coastlines.)

One thing more I have to say about this book is there is a before “TIC” attitude from which I functioned in reading and responding here and elsewhere, and an after. In no way can I now look at history unfolding in the same way.

Also, I remember growing up during WWII (I was born in ’37) wondering what’s going on? The simple explanations, even to a 7 year old, seemed so, I don’t know, so empty of something. This book has filled in some gaps left open since then.

LOL!

Yes, I do a whole chapter in THE IMPERIAL CRUISE on the Delano-FDR link and agree with what you wrote. Grandpa Delano had been the American Opium King of China.

roger that! I walked up to him after the ceremony at the 10th Anniversary of the Wall and said “hi, I was here with you in 1971″. He looked at me like O had the plague!

And your remark about the Opium Queen is just as startling!

James: How important was the idea of manliness, “muscular Christianity” to TR? Did it also reflect spirit of the times, concerns about “overcivilization, getting soft” or was it more TR’s own psychological thing? I get the sense Muscular Christianity remains very strong in the 21st century. Anyone share my concerns about this?

I am not surprised at the racist aspects of American policy, foreign and domestic. It has always been there, especially in our deep south.

Something with a newer twist was beginning to flourish at the turn of the century. Eugenics. I have not read your book but I wonder if you touched on that as an aspect of our culture at that time?

Yep!

*heh* Even after all the damage had been done, eh…? 8-(

The entire Korean peninsula had been denuded of all trees…!

I haven’t heard anything of late on the ‘Comfort Girls’ reparations and/or acknowledgment… But, not surprising considering that even the Armenian genocide is still being opposed by a sitting Prez…!

To be a successfully elected politician, you had to be a “manly man.” Roosevelt played tennis all the time, but allowed no photos of himself in tennis whites. (You can see him writing about this in the book.) When he’d get atop a horse, he encouraged photos, and hence that imagery lives on today.

My book leaves off at 1905 when eugenics ideas were not new, but not well formed.

Well, He was a ‘Rough Rider’…! ;-)

All Americans were stunned and shocked at the “sneak attack” on Dec 7, 1941.
American ships and personnel at Pearl Harbor were sitting ducks, the raid was seemingly out of the blue. Of course all America rallied, and the great Depression was thus ended. But the amount of blood that was shed, the loss of millions of lives and limbs…With a more diligent reading of the Imperial Japan TR whipped up, should we have expected Pearl Harbor? What feeling do you think WWII veterans might come away with after reading your book, James?

Rode rough over the Constitution it seems.

Oh, well. Business as usual!

If I was a WWII veteran, I would be shocked to learn that President Theodore Roosevelt agreed a secret treaty for the Japanese military to expand into Asia. US leaders did not believe that liberty and democracy was Asia’s future, but rather dominance by the US-UK Anglo-Saxons. But “surprise” attacks cover up a lot uncomfortable history.

Burt, I think the evidence is fairly clear,…FDR fully expected an attack, but expected it in the Philippines, Indo-China, or the Dutch East Indies. Because of the Axis pact, the expectation was that Japan would exploit the British, French and Dutch colonies, as given the state of things in Europe in 41, the colonial powers could not defend their interests. The attack was not a surprise at all — where it came, Pearl Harbor, definately was a shock.

In contradistinction to Imperial Russia, which had just lost to Japan in the Russo-Japanese War, the first major European power to do so. It caused quite a stir in Europe, less so here because as racist as was pre-First World War America was, our self-image was that we had more in common with not-yet-imperial Japan than imperial France, Britain or Germany. Despite the fact that, as Teddy knew, we had just acquired considerable durable influence over Cuba, the Philippines and the remnants of Spain’s former empire.

Is TR to be burdened by not forecasting Japan’s growth or the dominance of its army over the emperor over the next three decades? Should he also have forecasted the Wall St. coup of 1934 or the beat Ike to the punch with his worries about the congressional-military-industrial complex?

Sara–you’re right. And . . . the issue isn’t Pearl Harbor. The issue is Japanese expansionism. Pearl Harbor wasn’t the invasion of the US. It was meant to facilitate Japanese expansionism into the rest of Asia, whose first step was condoned by TR in the summer of 1905.

Which would mean at the expense of former imperial China and the British, Dutch and French, who were dominant in China, SE Asia and what is now Indonesia.

Maybe I was naive. Of course I knew about white supremacists, the KKK, in the Deep South. But the editorial cartoons displayed in Bradley’s book, revealed that what is today incredible racism, was actual policy, not at all limited to the old Confederacy. There’s a cartoon of Secretary of War Howard Taft holding a stereotypically African savage-looking baby (a”Pacific Negro”), with Taft about to scrub him clean. The baby just didn’t understand it was all good for him! Just sickening. And this was American policy.

I don’t “burden” TR for not seeing the future.
I do document that he went around the Senate in an unconstitutional move to approve the Japanese military expanding into Korea . . . the first step in the problem that we would later call WWII in the Pacific.

Well, they didn’t get what they truly needed to destroy…the carriers. Halsey had them out to sea just then. Convenience or??? So from that point of view, they had to attack Pearl.

I don’t know what to make of the fact that Japan had observers on Hawaii sending back reports. Didn’t they see the carriers steaming out?

We need to define “Asia” here.
In TR’s mind, it was “North Asia”–the area where China, Manchuria and Korea come together–that was the prize. Few realize (but as I document) that Teddy’s “Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine” applied to South America and North Asia.

In my readings I recall even into the war the Japanese admired Americans immensely and sought to replicate many of our attributes. It seems naive to not believe they would also mimic our Imperialism.

How do you think history would have been different had we not blockaded their access to oil?. I frankly doubt the Corporate Republicans would have assented to war with Germany had they not declared war on us after the Japanese attack.

Trivia alert: The renewal of the draft passed by 1 vote in Nov. 1941

James, has there been any TR “defenders” taking issue with your book?

He did whack the Constitution a few times with that big stick he carried up to his bully pulpit…! ;-)

This is a very interesting question.
The NEW YORK TIMES challenged the “besotted Roosevelt biographers” to explain why they hadn’t dealt with this material and Don Imus also did on his show, but no one has come forth.
To be clear, there’s no “thesis” here to challenge, as there are 40 pages of footnotes. The question is, why has no one brought these facts forward before?

It’s simple, the Japanese had very poor and slow communications with their agents in and around Hawaii. Bad Com. Their communication about the landscape in Hawaii went through Germany.

Yes. But as indicated to my query Eugenics was by that time beginning to take the country by storm in the hubris of the authority of “science” justifying and making it acceptable intellectually.

Many of these TR Republicans followed right on to become admirers of Harding, Coolidge, Hoover Nixon

Yet he changed how the Senate was composed, from appointed to elected. In the face of some senators that would put today’s aggressive ones to shame.

I didn’t know that. I knew it was slow, but not about the path.

Actually the amendment that provided for direct election of Senators is a Wilson Era product. As is the Income Tax, and Women’s rights to vote.

Little mentioned, the actual architect of American Strategy in WWII was George C. Marshall, who in the early 20′s spent four years in China commanding a small force in a trust area the US had charge of via the League of Nations. Marshall learned a good deal of Chinese, and spent his time commissioning English Translations of ancient Chinese manuscripts on the arts and tactics of War and Diplomacy.

It was something that was not much discussed that attracted FDR to Marshall, and among other things, probably brought him into the inner circle in the mid 30′s given FDR’s China Interests.

In the book it is revealed that Secretary of War Wm H Taft declared the Filippinos “not fit for independence.” So we appointed the government there, and later in Vietnam, and now in Afghanistan. One would think Obama might get the folly of continuing such policies. Guess he hasn’t read this book yet.

Is there even one man or woman in public service half the intellectual that Marshall was?. (sigh)

Wikipedia-
The Seventeenth Amendment (Amendment XVII) to the United States Constitution was passed by the Senate on June 12, 1911, the House of Representatives on May 13, 1912, and ratified by the states on April 8, 1913. The amendment supersedes Article I, § 3, Clauses 1 and 2 of the Constitution, transferring Senator selection from each state’s legislature to popular election by the people of each state. It also provides a contingency provision enabling a state’s governor, if so authorized by the state legislature, to appoint a Senator in the event of a Senate vacancy until either a special or regular election to elect a new Senator is held.

I was astounded to read public speeches and presidential documents explaining that–according to race theory–Filipinos were not “fit” for democracy. I went back to Harvard and Columbia and found that our leaders had to know these race theories as “fact” in order to graduate. Why aren’t we told these facts in our history books?

I was astounded to read public speeches and presidential documents explaining that–according to race theory–Filipinos were not “fit” for democracy. I went back to Harvard and Columbia and found that our leaders had to know these race theories as “fact” in order to graduate.
Why aren’t we told these facts in our history books?

“why has no one brought these facts forward before?” ; and bring down the establishment?

To honestly address the entrenchment of money and power among the few in the U.s. would lay the myth of ‘all men are created equal’ to rest and might actually cause an ‘uprising’ as it would show that the U.S. is in fact a society of class.

Can’t have that can we?

Sorry. I intended this reply for Burt
The Holocaust gave Eugenics a bad name.
So they changed history for the simple folk.

But whatever you call it. It has been there and is there. And yes it is a story to tell to justify plundering the people.

Thousands of readers, researchers, authors, etc., over a hundred years must have seen the facts in my book that the NEW YORK TIMES called “startling.” These facts are not restricted by “the establishment” you write of. I’m mystified why they haven’t been brought out before.

I went back to check and you are right. I see however, that Roosevelt pushed for some of the changes. Taft might have done it but didn’t.

Learning more about that era. See what you have done, James? ;-)

Might it be possible that the Tea Party right and populist progressives on the left, both angry at the concentration of wealth and power, might actually recognize a unity and take back that centralized power, enabling regions and states, municipalities and communities to develop their own power? like real self determination, self government?
Nah, it’s too easy relying on cheap stuff our empire provides and celebrity politics the media dishes out.

James, I think we just have to realize that the paradigm of race dominated so much in the 19th and the first half of the 20th Century. To change the paradigm, you had to have dedicated opponents. You can start with Gandhi and read his opposition to emerging apartheid in S.Africa, and how he then applied it to Congress Party Policy in India. You have many others who acted in such a way as to prove the paradigm unreliable.

I’ve lived amongst Filipinos here in Hawai’i since I was a wee laddie and trust me they’re some of the most productive and generous souls around…! Btw, we’re still belaboring the VA reparations in the US Senate for Filipino WWII vets that fought alongside our forces in the Philippines and the subsequent Island Hopping we did…! A truly sad state of affairs… Foreign or other…! 8-(

Sara– you write, “the paradigm of race dominated so much in the 19th and the first half of the 20th Century.”
What about now?

Mr. Bradley, do you truly think Little, Brown & Company would have published this book back in the 1920′s? or even the 1930′s? Your work is extremely valuable in that it shows the U.S. historical intervention in other nations affairs and it’s militaristic bent that goes on even further back in history but I find it very doubtful that -even if the facts were seen by others- such would have been published as not enough time had gone by for the myth to be taken down.

And yet. I live in a semi-rural red state area. Last night driving home I passed one of the many run down houses in our area. Hard to believe anyone lives in it. Some 2 dozen motor bikes and pickups with Confederate flags etc parked all around. I hate to say it but my heart skipped a beat and I wondered if it was a KKK or other White supremacist group gathering.

Nope we have some ways to go to make it safe for all of us.

This is still a country where public officials think it is a funny political joke to send out emails with the vilest of racial slurs.

I appreciate your thought.
And how about now? The Roosevelt biographers that the NEW YORK TIMES challenged are not from the 1930′s but are publishing now. How come we today still have trouble facing facts?

…the myth of the White Christian Male being at the top of the evolutionary chain.

“What about now?”

Change is hard but slow, but I think it bends in the direction of discounting race — with that change uneven both in terms of the cultures that need to address change, and generations. I think there is a growing tendency to use culture, class, other attributes that are acquired rather than genetic inheritance the way race was once dominant in the paradigm of how we sort the world.

Very interesting . . .

We are troubled facing facts because it would lead, if done honestly, to facing ourselves.

Sorry to arrive late to the party, thank you, James, for joining us.

DW

There is a White Supremacist group wanting to take up residence in a Central Oregon town, and the town leaders say they welcome diversity, but not this kind.

Ironic, ain’t it?

As we come to the end of this great Book Salon,

James, Thank you for stopping by the Lake and spending the afternoon with us discussing your new book and your research.

Burt, Thank you for Hosting this great Book Salon.

Everyone, if you haven’t bought James’ book yet, here is a link.

Thanks all.

It does seem that racism in the US has kept any sense of class consciousness from become a reality here. The real rulers must just laugh when the lower classes fight amongst themselves based on race. Keeps their hold on power safe.

Glad to be here and I appreciate everyone’s involvement and thank you all for being open minded readers!

Wealth is the new racism, actually, unfettered greed …

Thanks Burt, Bev and all!!!

Take care, James, and i am off to pick up an earlier book of yours to read.

Thank you much!

My suspicion is that they don’t want to know, doesn’t ‘fit’ what they want to write about or will be peer reviewed well.

“How come we today still have trouble facing facts?” ; rhetorical, right? It’s a ‘fact’ that a single payer healthcare system is the most cost efficient and effective healthcare system but….

Alright!

This is the Age of the Divine Right of Money.

That is the new paradigm.

DW

Thank you, Bev, It was great fun. I hope readers will check out TheBurtCohenShow for more such fun.

I agree. These ideologies and theories are simply taken and used by the entrenched powerful to excuse exploitative behavior.

*heh* As I’ve told numerous Hosts/Guests here at the Lake… the water here runs wide and deep…! *g*

Mahalo Nui Loa…! To you and Burt for taking the time to be here…!

Please don’t be strangers…! *g*

“How come we today still have trouble facing facts?” ;”

In K-12 and in many college classes, we get a sense of history as “Celebration” — something that goes along with Identity Politics and overemphasis of Ethnic History. All this isn’t necessarily wrong in total, but as a basis for rooting out facts and sorting them, it prejudices the historical product.

4 minutes into the blog about the Oscars…75 comments.

Two hours here…125 comments.

Sigh!

Well said, Sara, and far too true.

Let us have more historians who root and sort as did Howard Zinn.

DW

Been working on a bio and a collection of memorabilia for my grandson. Just ordered “Sir no Sir,” it will make a great addition. Hadn’t heard of it, thanks for the heads up.

Ahhh, probably too late.

But in my view the Anglo-Japanese Treaty nearly a decade before completely pre-saged TR’s actions in the Treaty of Portsmouth. The British were already acting to supply Japan’s industrial growth, increasing trade and cultural ties, and rewarding Japan for their assistance in the Opium Wars by acknowledging their “rights” on the Korean Peninsula. Essentially the Brits were working with the Japanese in acknowledging economic and political spheres of influence in East Asia…to the detriment of Russia.

With the introduction of the Americans in the Phillipines after the Spanish-American War new boundaries had to be established. One odd element in the Treaty of Portsmouth is the acknowledgement that Japan would surrender any territorial claims on the Philippines. What were these supposed claims? The Spanish had been in the region for over a century. And why did Roosevelt even consider them so important to need to define them. I’m unaware of any Japanese colonial settlements on the islands, although the did once compete with China and the Portuguese for Formosa/Taiwan…all arriving about the same time in the 1600′s.

Perhaps the Japanese had started to consider the region as of interest in that period.

I do know that the British brought Japanese Samurai as mercenaries to their factory at Ternate in the Moluccan Spice Islands. The Dutch at Amboyna suspected these Samurai were spying on them and, with the British, intent on capturing their fortress. The Dutch soldiers captured the British merchants and Japanese guards and subjected them to an array of tortures including water boarding. I believe all the Japanese and most of the English merchants were executed or died in this effort to extract confessions. But the survivors were freed and eventually returned to Britain, where broadsheets revealing their inhuman treatment were published. This led to the two Anglo-Dutch Wars, after the Dutch merchants and military that perpetrated these acts were tried, but “exonerated” for “a grave, but understandable, error”.

The more things change the more they stay the same. (sigh)

You had me until, “Nah…”

Keep hope dead (apologies to JJackson).

Cue Living Colour, “The Cult of Personality.”

Neon lights, a nobel prize
The mirror speaks, the reflection lies
You don’t have to follow me
Only you can set me free
I sell the things you need to be
I’m the smiling face on your t.v.
I’m the cult of personality
I exploit you still you love me

Aaagh!

I know a person who goes by paz, from Alabama I believe.

F.T.A. too…

http://www.amazon.com/FTA-Jane-Fonda/dp/B001HBVE7Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1268034585&sr=1-1