Well said Dave!! I'm constantly after the local school board to strengthen the History and Geography courses. I believe all students should have US as well as World History. Their comeback to me is always, we are installing new computers. Why buy them if you do not know where you come from, and they defiantly do not know where they are, and could not find their way to anywhere, or get back for that matter. Who was the smart person who said "if you do not know history, you are doomed to repeat it"? At 08:19 AM 10/06/2000 -0400, you wrote: >In a message dated 05/10/00 5:41:50 PM Central Daylight Time, xanadue@gte.net >writes: > ><< Have to say I agree with Peter. I am first generation in America and > lived in Scotland for awhile as a child. Its a beautiful country > especially around Inverness and the Kyles of Bute actually too many to > name. But why people are obessed with the rulers of the countries that > kicked them around and out of their homes I will never know..As the > famous poet said, "A Mans' a Man for a' that!" >> > >If you read that particular poem from Mr. Burns in the context of the time >you may understand a lot more about it. > >The reason to study history is simply to not allow the same mistakes of the >past to be repeated. One of the SMP's made the comment when discussing the >stature of the Sutherland statue that as a child he wanted to blow it up >because the clearances angered him so much, but as an adult he realized that >the memory of such events, which will be served by the new center and >monument of the people who were cleared, will cause us to always remember the >inhumanity. > >You have a similar situation in the US where a fraction of the people are >demanding that the flag flown in the civil war by the South be removed from >state buildings because it brings back bad memories. That is the exact reason >it should be kept so we can never forget the inhumanity. > >You will notice after world war 2 one of the first things done was the >destruction of the death camps, they were turned into nice little park type >areas. Now you have nutters saying it never happened. The wall in Berlin was >removed and built around, the statues of Lenin, Stalin, etc., smashed and >removed. The list goes on and on. > >One of the reasons that American workers have a lower standard of living and >fewer perks, etc., and that the destruction of the middle class is allowed, >is that history has been allowed to be replaced with fiction and the children >do not remember. > >A fine example of this is the present claim that America was originated as a >God fearing religious nation, but if one reads the thoughts about religion >from the founding fathers and their distrust of the church and religion, they >will see this is not true. Being as you were probably sent to school in >America you may believe this to be true because when you stood up in the >class you stated your wee oath of allegiance, with the line One Nation Under >God, but nobody told you that was added in the reign of MacArthy, (about >1954-56) during the communist hunts. Either we study our history, or we >repeat our mistakes. That by the way is one of the reasons we are not all >speaking German today, Hitler made darn near repeated all the mistakes >Napoleon made. > >That is why we must study our history and find out why we have some laws and >principles, what caused them to be written. > >Then again when I was young I was not overly impressed with the past either, >rathering to spend my time contemplating the future. >Dave M. http://thefrasers.com This site is dedicated to all people of the name FRASER and - SCOTLAND-