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[Don Bowen <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

At 5/18/2005, you wrote:
> > "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present
> > controls the past." (_1984_ by George Orwell)
>
> I don't remember the context of that statement. Taken at face value, it 
> says that the past and the future are controlled by those currently in 
> power. I don't find that compelling. History books are rarely rewritten 
> with each power term. The future is only partially predictable from the 
> present. As the actions of the current US president have shown, we can no 
> longer depend on historical actions by a major political party to predict 
> the immediate or near future actions by that party.

History is easily manipulated by those who wish it were something 
else.  Witness the transformation of the Civil War from a war to remove the 
stain of human bondage.  New history books have become so watered down by 
the competing demands of the left to include everyone no matter how 
insignificant and the right to make heros of the founding fathers.  A 
certain dullness has settled over our text books that satisfies no one but 
at the same time upsets as few as possible.  That dullness of history is 
then replaced by commercial interests that sell history as they sell 
laundry soap,

Television has done its part to make an independent study of history dull 
and replaced that with an entertaining version showing computer simulations 
and colorized film.  Turn off the television, tell the preachers to stop 
telling you how to think, throw away the mostly fictionalized versions 
pushed by both the left and the right, and do some independent research to 
truly understand history.

Don Bowen                          Awl Knotted Up

My travel journal
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html

My present location is the star on the map in the link below
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?latlongtype=decimal&latitude=33.506083&longitude=-117.099019