American History Rewritten, Veterans Day – Pro-Family Legislators Conference Pt 1:  David Barton presents how history is being re-written with a liberal slant to present America as having bad values and discrediting the military.  History major standards and textbooks are taking out all patriotic content.  He explains the importance in being involved in the curriculum in your state.

Air Date: 03/23/2017

Guests: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast.  However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers.  Additionally, names may be misspelled because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Welcome


Rick:


Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture, WallBuilders Live! Normally we’re in studio with David Barton, America’s premier historian, but we’re actually going to go out on location with him.

It’s going be a two part program but it’s a presentation he’s giving at the Pro-Family Legislators Conference just a few weeks back. You can find out more at our website today. Let’s sneak in on him right now and give you a chance to hear his presentation. Here’s David Barton at the Pro-Family Legislators Conference.

David:

In honoring those who serve, I want to through some stuff out to you for you to consider. It has to do with the future of Veteran’s Day.  It has to do with what Veteran’s Day may look like 15 to 20 years from now, and it deals with the way that we deal with military history at this point.

I want you to see what’s happening with this. If you look particularly at what the College Board does which is run by David Coleman. You may know David Coleman, he’s the architect of Common Core. That’s his nickname, architect of Common Core.

It”€™s the College Board that does the AP testing which I think has 47 different AP courses that are available to states. One of those AP courses is ap history. About 460,000 kids a year go through AP history and in going through AP history this is the last course they’re going to have in high school.

These are the brightest and best history kids in high school.  They’re the advanced kids. When you look at the A.P. test, the College Board came out in September of 2014 with the standards that teachers need to be teaching to prepare kids to pass this test.

The standards had been five pages long, they changed them to 142 pages. So, the standards that came out September 2014, 142 pages long on what kids need to be ready for to be able to pass this AP test. And so as you go through the standards it’s interesting what’s not there.

Why Are They Questioning American Values

The Founding Fathers are gone. They’re not part of the standards. Apparently, 2014 standards you don’t need to know that.  That standard for AP is gone. You also have gone the American Revolution. None of the major battles of the revolution occur in any way shape, fashion, or form. In addition to that what we would say as a precaution leading up to the Civil War all the various aspects that brought Lincoln to the forefront, not there.

Matter of fact, even the Civil War itself, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, or any major battle in Civil War is covered at all for AP history kids.

In the same way, military history has gone. World War II, there is no D-Day, there’s no Battle of ***,  no Battle of Midway, there’s no military leaders.  Eisenhower”€™s not presented, Patton’s not presented.  MacArthur, Nimitz, they’re all gone. For that matter, Hitler is not even presented.  The Nazis are not even present.  The Holocaust is not even presented.

They”€™re all gone out of the standards, completely gone.  So, what is it that we teach to the most advanced history kids in America? What kind of things do we cover? Well, it’s interesting. They said, “€œThe decision to drop the atomic bomb raise questions about American values.”€   Now, that’s an interesting statement because you’ve had a complete absence of military history and now that you’re going to bring something military in you”€™re going to talk about how bad it is.  

I need to give you a little background behind this. This raising question about American values, really?  If you didn’t see, I think it was back in May, President Obama became the first American president ever to go to Hiroshima.

Japan Had An ISIS Mentality

The imaging was, “€œHey, we’re the ones who dropped the bomb on you. You’re the victims.  We’re the aggressors.”€ And so that’s why no other president had ever gone. To this day Japan has never apologized for Pearl Harbor. But here we are over on that turf.

At that point in time, President Obama said, “€œWhat happened here calls for a moral revolution.”€

Ok, let’s talk about the moral revolution. You look at World War II.  There were 60 million deaths in World War II. Forty million of them occurred in the European theater.  Twenty million of those deaths occurred in the Pacific theater. What we had to do, we found that you had to have boots on the ground.  It was not sufficient to just do air bombing of Berlin, Dresden, and all the other places. You had to do more than that. We put boots on the ground.

So, we go in and D-Day is called Operation Overlord.  As a result of that, we start pushing the Nazis back into Germany and finally get everything corralled and we take Germany.

We realized the same thing is going because at the time that Germany surrenders we have been bombing Japan for months. Their recalcitrance is higher than it’s ever been. They have no intention of surrendering. They think that what’s going on they can survive.

So, we realize we’re going to have to put boots on the ground there. That operation is called Operation Downfall. We need to knock Japanese down and end the war. We’ve ended it in Europe.  We’ve not ended the Pacific.

And so at that point in time we start making projections of what it will take because we’ve had boots on the ground in Europe. Now we’re going to put boots on the ground in Japan. And in looking at what the casualties would be.  The projections that they came up with to invade Japan but what they gave to the commander of the B-29 squadrons that have been bombing and everything else. It would be one million American deaths, would be somewhere between 2 and 4 million allied deaths.  And it would be between five and 10 million Japanese deaths depending on how fiercely they resisted.

They were being told by their leadership there’s nothing- they had this military Shintoism which is the ISIS mentality.  There’s nothing more glorious than dying for your country. “€œIf you can die for your country that’s the highest thing you can do.”€

We Tried Warning Them

By the way, you need to understand that the Japanese military was their version of ISIS at the time.  For example, their military officers would often have beheading competitions to see who can behead 100 prisoners the fastest. They even had to have runoffs from time to time.

When they would capture Americans.  For example, they captured an American submarine and instead of making the Americans prisoners of war they laid them down on the deck and took a sledgehammer and squashed the head of everyone in just like a melon.   They took other American prisoners and burned them alive. They took wounded American prisoners and bayoneted them, just like a porcupine, just made them into a pin cushion.

What happened with the Bataan Death March? They were a death mentality. They trained their 15 year olds to be suicide bombers. Thirty five hundred missions that we have suicide bomb missions in World War II.  We don’t hear much about that today.  They also went and took the Korean women and made them what they call “€œcomfort girls,”€ sex slaves for the Japanese soldiers.

By the way, Hitler killed 7,000 Jews.  The Japanese killed 10,000 Chinese and a genocide, similar racial genocide going on. So Japanese, not a good situation at all. They were the ISIS of that day.

So, we realize we’ve got to go there. And they’ve been teaching that nothing is more glorious than dying for your country. So, if they resist much, it’s going to be 5 million if they really resist it’s going to be 10 million Japanese deaths.

So, you’re looking at this vicinity of maybe 15 million deaths that you’re going to face at that point. That’s when we dropped the two bombs, August the 6th and August the 9th of 1945. And in dropping those two bombs there were 150,000 immediate deaths and 150,000 radiation deaths.  300,000 killed in the two bombs versus 15 million.  So tell me what the moral problem is with the situation?  I don’t understand why American values have been called into question over this.

Let me add something else to it as well. One of the things that we don’t get told today is that we dropped 70 million leaflets on Japan saying, “€œJapan, we’re going to bomb these 35 cities right here. We want no civilian losses. They all have military installations. We”€™re dropping this.  We”€™ll tell you the cities we’re going to attack because we want to leave those cities. We don’t want anybody killed. We want to destroy the military operations.”€

We told them ahead of time which cities we were going to bomb including Hiroshima, Nagasaki. See this one right here?  That one gave all 35 cities and there’s one over here, I think it’s this one, where they said, “€œYou’ve seen the devastation B-29. We have a single bomb. That is the equivalent of 2,000 a plane loads of B-29″€™s. We will drop that bomb. We want you to be gone.”€

They Wouldn”€™t Surrender

So, we had taken the islands of site plan.  We created the radio station KSAI, and every 15 minutes we broadcasted into Japan that we got this bomb we’re gonna drop. You really don’t want to be there for it. I don’t understand the problem with American values.

You’ve got to think from military standpoint.  I’m a pilot. I don’t like the fact that we have just told the enemy that 35 cities we”€™re going to appear at. I mean, I think they’ll be waiting for us, slightly?

But American values, were such that, “€œWe”€™ve got to end the deaths,”€ and rather than take 15 million we’re going to do this 300,000.  Don’t want to.  We’ve given you so many opportunities to surrender.

We actually had to go around the military leaders.  We broadcasted directly into Japan to the people saying, “€œYour leaders don’t want to surrender. Convince them to surrender because until they surrender we will keep pounding you and you don’t want that. And we don’t want that.”€

I mean, we did everything- 70 million leaflets. That’s no small thing that we did.  And on top of that, we actually rebuilt them after we did. We had no responsibility to do that. Within seven years they were back in the world community under American leadership.We put them right back in the world. We fully trusted, fully embraced within seven years. Despite all that they had done at that point.

History And Social Study Standards

So, this is the kind of stuff- if you’re going to present military history this way your next generation of kids coming through- and let’s not just stop there. This is our this is the Common Core guy.  But here in Texas, we are conservative.  We’re a very red state.

We have in Texas what we call ***, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. Texas and California have 24 percent of the nation’s public school students. Our standards in both of those states drive every other state.  Sorry, the rest of you get stuck with what comes to us because we’re the only two states big enough to sell enough textbooks in our states that publishers recover the money they’ve invested in publications.

So, they’ll come to Indiana and make some changes, go to Louisiana make some changes.  They’ll go across and make some changes, but you basically get what California  and Texas has.  I’ve been in both of the states of California and Texas appointed by a state board of education and governors to do the history standard and social study standards in both of the states.

American History Rewritten

Let me show you Texas because we’re the conservative state. California not so much, but we are. Grade five, notice this, seeing red is what they want to take out, what the teachers said had to be removed in Texas.   So, we’re taking out Omar Bradley and George Patton. But we don’t even mention them once in 12 years of curriculum in Texas.  George Patton doesn’t show up one time. Bradley doesn’t show up.

Bradley holds the world’s record for being the commander over the most troops ever. He is the guy that went in from the western side of Germany. He’s the guy that swept all the way across and got in Germany corralled. So big deal in World War II.

Those two we don’t mention.  But we do mention Oveta Culp Hobby three times and everybody knows who she is, right? No?  Exactly. But she is very liberal, so we’ve got to have her in there three times and let’s get the military guys out.

Watch The Standards In Your State

In the same way, we take out the origin of military institutions. We’re not going to teach any military history. And so all of the five branches we got to get rid of those guys. And then while we’re at it, we’re also going to take out the reasons for the Bill of Rights.  You don’t need to know why we have the Bill of Right and what the motivations were behind that.

And in addition to that, not knowing the purpose of any of the 10 amendments because we’re not going to study that anymore. We’re also starting back in first grade going to remove Nathan Hale. We’re also going to take out the Liberty Bell because those are patriotic symbols and as they pointed out.  We’re global citizens.  We’re not America.

This is the stuff coming out of Texas. So what do you think it is in other states? So what do you think Veterans Day is going to look like 20 years from now? No military history, no cognisance of the origin of the branches, no idea of the sacrifice that went on in World War II except when our American values were really, really bad.

So this is why you really have to watch standards in your own states even though you’re a  right state like Texas. What’s going to happen is even though Texas and California drive it, more and more is moving to online curriculum, online standards.  That’s where you can have a huge impact is for those online standards.  And you have a huge impact on the quality of textbooks in your state by how you spend your state money.   So that’s a different conversation.  But nonetheless, you just need to know what the military history is in all this.

Moment From American History

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. The Reverend James Caldwell was a famous minister during the American War for Independence. His sermons taught liberty and God’s opposition to tyranny.

The British hated him and tried to kill him. So for his own protection he would actually take loaded pistols with him into the pulpit and lay them beside his Bible as he preached. In the 1780 Battle of Springfield the Americans ran out of wadding for their guns which was like having no ammunition.

Pastor Caldwell ran inside a nearby church and returned with an armload of Watts Hymnals, the pages of which would provide the much needed wadding. He took this great Bible based hymnal, raised in the air, and shouted to the troops,”€Now put to Watts into them boys!”€ This pastor’s ingenuity saved the day for the Americans.

For more information or Pastor James Caldwell and other colonial patrons go to WallBuilders.com

The Crazy Standards For Getting An American History Major

David:

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, literally the alumni”€™s and the trustees of various colleges across the country. Every year they monitor what comes out in U.S. News and World Report, elite universities. This year, there are 76 colleges and universities listed in the elite of U.S. News and World Report. Every year they look at something, some aspect, this year they looked at history. How do we teach history at the top 76 universities colleges in America?

Their conclusion was, “€œAmerica’s past, is passed over.”€ Now, this is what they said, “€œWe have a crisis in civic education.”€ Their report is out, and all they did was look at history majors in those 70″€™s.

What do you do with a history major? Well, you go back and become a curriculum director for a school system, or you go on to be a history professor, or there’s always certain things you can do with a history degree, and that’s basically teach history.

So, they looked at the history majors. What you do a history major in the 76 universities?  What they found for history majors is fairly interesting. Less than one third of the top colleges and universities in the United States require history majors to take even a single course in American history.   Now, you’re about to go back and be the curriculum director for an entire school system and you have to have 30 hours, usually, in your major field, 10 courses or so in history. And not a single one of those courses is going to be American history. And you’re about to become a curriculum director for K through 12 or whatever you are.

So, that’s history majors. Not a single course in American history.  And that’s less than one third of the required. Now, it’s not all one third the required. I’ll just read the report. In a new report the American Council trustees alumni find that only 23 undergraduate history programs, and 76 of the colleges ranked highest by U.S. News World Report require even a single American History course to fulfill the history major.

Some Examples

Of the 23 schools that do require us history class to fulfill the history major, 11 allow other classes such as hip hop, politics, and youth culture in America. That can be your American History course in University of Connecticut. Your card take one.  That can be it.

Or madmen and madwomen, Middlebury College, to fulfill the requirements. So, if you’re going to take one course in American history. This is the course you can take, and that’s the American History course.   Many of the same institutions that do not require history majors or take a course on United States history do specify that they must complete coursework on areas outside the United States.

You”€™re required to take other history outside America but no American history. And many allow some very strange highly specialized topics to substitute for a course on the United States.

History majors at Williams College could choose soccer and history in Latin America, making the beautiful game.  That can be your American History course. At Swarthmore one could be modern addictions to cigarette smoking in the 20th Century.  At Bowdoin it might be Lawn Boy meets Valley Girl.  That’s your American History course to be history major.

Who Controls The Past Controls The Future

This is for history majors. So what’s that tell you America’s going to look at 20 years from now? There is a great statement by George Orwell, “€œWho controls the past controls the future.”€

The past is what helps prepare you for what you think your country’s going to be. The statement we heard yesterday, I think Dennis Prager said that the Soviet Union said, “€œWe know what our future is, it”€™s our past that”€™s always changing.”€ And that’s what they do is change their past based on what the future is going to be. But here’s the key, who controls the present controls the past.

So, that’s right now with the way we teach our teachers right now, the way we teach our students right now, that’s the way we present the past. So, the way we present the past about World War II or military history or veterans or anything else that tells you what the future is going to be 20 years from now. So, that’s why it becomes so significant.  By the way, state universities, they’re taking your money.  You ought to at least require kids to have a course in American history back from the revolution forward.

“€œOh, it”€™s academic freedom.”€ No, it”€™s not.  It”€™s states taking your money, using taxpayers money. I guarantee you if you took a poll from people in your state they don’t want American history left out.

And on top of that, you heard about Bob McEwen said about the free market system. Only 3 percent of universities now require any course in free market economics for graduation kids. Every kid that goes to school should be trying to free market economics. That’s why Bernie’s kids are all socialist because we no longer teach anything about free market economics.

Socialist Millennials Don”€™t Know What Socialism Is

Now, the interesting thing about Bernie”€™s kids, not a single one of them was able to define the word socialism. Watch all the interviews and all the survey stuff. None of them knew what that was, but they knew what they liked.  They like socialism, but they’ve never been exposed to anything else at all.

That was what I showed two days ago on Thursday night. The purpose of a historian is to show cause and effect. We don’t do that. You cannot show a good effect from the cause of socialism.

You can show lots of good effects from the cause of free market.  Since we don’t teach cause effects anymore everybody makes their own truth.  Everybody gets their own standards.  We’re all poststructural. “€œIt’s truth for me, I think the socialism is good.”€ You might think that, but it’s never worked in history in the world and it”€™s not going to work for you.

I might think that jumping off the Empire State Building won’t kill me but I guarantee you it will kill me.  You can think what you want to, but there are facts.  There are cause and effects.

So, just a thought to throw out, dealing with Veterans Day there is a little thing I want you to see in the way of numbers.  43 million Americans have served in the military. We currently have 18 million folks alive who are military veterans. It’s not a small constituency. 1.2 million have given their lives at some point for us to enjoy what we have today.

Our kids will not know any of that because we don’t do military history anymore. Nothing about the sacrifice, we just have what we have because it’s a happy accident and we’ll have it forever. There is no sacrifice required.

It used to be that out of the pulpits, and you heard from George how reluctant and reticent the pulpit is to deal with even the issues that face us today.  We sure don’t deal with issues like military anymore.  But we used to.

Here’s an example of a sermon for those you go to the library tomorrow, you”€™ll see a lot of these things. We have thousands of old sermons. This is one on the relations of Christianity and war. Now a lot of people say there is no relation, those two things don’t go together. And that’s why you have the peace movements.

God Is A God Of War And Love

I love the signs in the space movements. See right there, “€œGod is love,”€ or “€œRead the Bible.”€ That’s a good idea.   Let’s read the Bible. As a matter of fact, let”€™s read Isaiah 13:3.  God says, “€œI’ve commanded my holy ones. I’ve summoned my warriors, the Lord Almighty is mustering an army for war.”€ That would screw up a lot of Christian kids today. “€œThat can’t be. The Bible is all peace.”€

Well, how about another verse? Let’s go to first Chronicles 5:22 “€œFor there fell down many slain because the war was of God.”€ “€œYou can’t say that.”€ Well, I didn’t, the Bible did.  God said that.

Matter of fact, Revelations in 19:11, “€œI saw heaven open, and behold, a white horse and he sat on it was called faithful and true and in righteousness he judges and makes war.”€ Everybody is looking for the second coming. Really? You’re looking for war? Because when he comes back he’s riding this white horse, he judges, makes war, and if you’ve seen what happens in the valley of Armageddon the Bible says blood ran as deep as the bridle horses. That’s pretty deep. That’s a lot of dead people to get that much blood.

What happened to God being the God of love? He is the God of love. But he is the God of war as well. There is a place and purpose for war and we no longer teach that. Pulpits sure as heck don’t teach that.

So, you look at how many miracles in the Bible were performed in acts of war, like wiping out the Egyptian army. Never before has the sea been parted but God gets the Army in there and says, “€œGotcha.”€ That’s it. No more Egyptian army.

Exodus 17, as long as Moses held his arms high they defeated the enemy. So what happens? They hold his arms high so they can whack the enemy really good.

Joshua 6, God performs a massive miracle and destroying the city of Jericho, the walls of Jericho. That’s a military battle going on and God’s the one who performed a miracle to do it.

You Have To Stop Bloodthirsty Men

Joshua 10, Joshua says, “€œGod we need more time to defeat the Amalekites, hold the sun right there.”€ “€œI”€™d be happy to hold the sun right here so you can wipe out the rest of the Amalekites.”€ That’s a miraculous miracle done for the purpose of war for wiping out an enemy.

Genesis 11 we”€™re introduced to Abraham and in Genesis 14 were introduced to the tithe. The tithe, Melchizedek comes and they give a tenth to Melchizedek, Abraham gives a tenth. What did Abraham give a tenth of? That’s the start of the tithe.

He gave a tenth of the spoils of war. Abraham had just returned from war.  He had the spoils of war.  He gave a tenth of that to Melchizedek and Melchizedek blessed him. That was a high praise and were told in the Bible that that’s after the image of Jesus, blessed him for giving him the spoils of war. “€œThat’s the start of the tithe?”€ Yeah.

See, the Bible is just filled with all these stories.  You have David Goliath.  That’s another miraculous story dealing with an army ,and a warrior, etc.. So that’s why Hebrews 11, it”€™s interesting, if you look at our faith Hall of Fame.  These are the Christian heroes that we have.

You read particularly in verses 32 and 33, “€œAnd what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and Barak, and Samson, and Jephthah, also David, and Samuel who through faith subdued kingdoms, became valiant in battle, turned to fly the armies of the enemies.”€ All of those guys were military guys. Every one of them and their heroes for us.

If you go through American history you’re going to think the Bible’s all screwed up. “€œThis is all bad.  The war’s not a good thing.”€ And I’m not saying war is a good thing, but I’m saying it is part of what happens. And there is evil and evil has to be defeated in wars. That’s the only way you’re going to defeat ISIS and bloodthirsty guys.  You have to have guys who go to war to do that.

We Used To Preach Military Sermons

So, that’s why we had sermons.  This is a sermon from 1755.  We”€™ll look at it more a little bit later. Here’s a sermon of the Christian patriot. Here’s a sermon on artillery company. By the way, artillery sermons were given once a year in front of the entire military. We had state militias back then and national guard if you want today, or state guard if you’re Texas and some other states.

Once a year you got them all together and you had a sermon what the Bible says about the military. Even John the Baptist when he baptized he had specific instructions for officers and for soldiers. We taught military Biblical view on so many things and that’s what the sermons are all about.

Again, try finding a modern sermon that addressed military issues on war or what God says about war.  They are not out there. George has more stats on what pastors refused to cover in this election. We’re talking the Bible believing SAGE Cons pastors flat out refused to talk about because as part of the polling he has.

So, when you look at soldiers there’s a great verse in Psalm 144:1, “€œPraise be to the Lord my rock who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.”€ There are people who are great orators, there are people who are great leaders, there are people who are great artists, there are people who are great singers, great dancers, there are people who are great warriors, and that’s a gift of God.

God’s gifts certain people to be great warriors just like he gives people to be evangelist or gifts and to be teachers. That’s a gift from God.  And very few would recognize that as the gift of God. But there are people that God trains their hands for war their fingers for battle.

When George Washington Almost Died

I want to give you a couple of examples of that. I want to take you to the French and Indian War.  It went in Europe much longer, but what we call the French and Indian War in America went from 1753 to 1763.  It involves particularly this area there. That’s the Ohio Valley.  Notice that it says, “€œVirginia,”  right there. This is all Virginia. All of this is considered Virginia back then. And Virginia was a British colony.

You see Pennsylvania up here but it’s yellow right there. All of that was part of Virginia. So what happens is the French come up the Mississippi River. They move in here and they say, “€œThis is all French territory.”€ And the British say, “€œNo, it’s not. This is British. This is Virginia. This is a British colony.”€

And so at that point in time you started getting in this situation of conflict where that most of the tribes sided with the French.  Some of the Indian tribes sided with the British. But in order to avoid a conflict what happens is Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia, which has all of this, said, “€œWe need to go talk to the French and notifiy them they’re on our territory and they need to get out.”€

And so what happens is he sends someone up into that Ohio territory and he wants to get a hold of the French and Indians and say, “€œThis is ours, you need to leave.”€ And the person he chose was a 23 year old kid named George Washington.  So he sends Washington up there.  Washington makes that trek.  It was in the middle of winter.  It was about 500 miles across frozen rivers.  Matter of fact, he almost died at this particular instant here.

Rick:

Well, friends, we’re out of time for today. You’ve been listening to David Barton speaking at the Pro-family Legislators Conference. Don’t miss tomorrow.  We’ll pick up with David Barton speaking of the Pro-Family Legislative Conference you’re listening to WallBuilders Live!