Schopenhauer on history

Clio, the muse of history, is as thoroughly infected with lies as a street whore with syphilis.

~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Peggy Noonan on the Civil War

The civil war was, in short, a great moral struggle in which a nation went to war with itself to answer, for us, forever, a question: Does one human being have the right to own another? The answer, got after four years of carnage and grief, was: no. Another epochal moment in human history. And if we handn't remained one strong and unified nation, the triumphs that followed would not have been possible.

~ Peggy Noonan, "What Americans Need to Know," The Wall Street Journal, November 21, 1990

Samuel Mitcham on when "all about slavery" became the official narrative of the Civil War

From the 1870s to the late 1950s, there was an unofficial truce between the North and South.  Each side recognized and saluted the courage of the other; it was conceded that the North fought to preserve the Union and because Old Glory had been fired on, and the Southerner fought for liberty and to defend his home; the two great heroes of the war were Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee; and the South admitted that slavery was wrong but never conceded that it was cruel.

Around 1960, the Democratic Party—led by Lyndon B. Johnson—advanced the modern incarnation of identity politics.  It worked very well for them.  In the election of 1956, 75% of African-Americans voted Republican.  By 1964, more than 90% of them voted Democrat, and they have been doing so until 2020.  As part of their effort to control and manipulate the black vote, the Leftists and their myrmidons advanced the myth that the Civil War was all about slavery.  It wasn’t.  It was, in my opinion, about money, more than anything else.

~ Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr., "Why the Civil War Wasn't About Slavery," LewRockwell.com, July 15, 2020

Vasko Kohlmayer on the twilight zone of official narratives in the Soviet Union

The narrative of the twilight zone of my youth went roughly as follows: Socialism was the greatest socio-economic system ever devised while capitalism was very, very bad. The Soviet Union was a paradisiacal land of freedom, opportunity, prosperity and happiness. The United States, on the other hand, was a country of exploitation and oppression where most people were bound, destitute and miserable. This official narrative was constantly and relentlessly promulgated from every quarter of our twilight zone: television, radio, textbooks, arts, newspapers, magazines, etc. Needless to say, the narrative ran in complete contravention of reality. The actual truth was that socialism was no good. On the other hand, most people in the United States were free, quite prosperous and reasonably happy while the Soviet Union was pretty much an all-around hellhole.

Those who attempted to point out the truth or question the authorized storyline were promptly silenced, suppressed and punished. As a result of the swift and efficient censorship the false narrative prevailed and took a deep hold on the societal mind. And because it served as the paradigm for reality, it distorted and turned upside down almost every aspect of life: the good was bad and bad was good; white was black and black was white. The values and ethics in the twilight zone became inverted.

~ Vasko Kohlmayer, "Twilight Zone USA," LewRockwell.com, June 19, 2020

Tom DiLorenzo on the Lincoln myth

No respectable historian believes the Deep North/government school fantasy that enlightened and morally-superior Northerners elected Abe Lincoln so that they could go to war and die by the hundreds of thousands solely for the benefit of black strangers in the "deep South."

~ Tom DiLorenzo, "A Disease of the Public Mind," Abbeville Blog, March 29, 2017

Abraham Lincoln
Centennial of Birth - 1909

Tom DiLorenzo on the Lincoln myth

Despite being mostly a bundle of lies, [the Lincoln myth] is nevertheless the ideological cornerstone of statism in America and has been for nearly 150 years. The real Lincoln was a dictator and a tyrant who shredded the Constitution, fiendishly orchestrated the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens, and did it all for the economic benefit of the special interests who funded the Republican Party (and his own political career).

~ Tom DiLorenzo, "The Real Lincoln in His Own Words," LewRockwell.com, June 5, 2013

Abraham Lincoln
Centennial of Birth - 1909

Tom DiLorenzo on the real Lincoln

After writing two books and dozens of articles, and giving hundreds of radio and television interviews and public presentations on the subject of Lincoln and the political economy of the American “Civil War”over the past fifteen years, I have realized that the only thing the average American knows about the subject is a few slogans that we are all subjected to in elementary school. I was taught in public elementary school in Pennsylvania that Abe was so honest that he once walked six miles to return a penny to a merchant who undercharged him (and six miles back home). He was supposedly so tendered hearted that he cried after witnessing the death of a turkey. He suffered in silence his entire life after witnessing slavery as a teenager (While everyone else in the country was screaming over the issue). And of course he was “a champion of democracy, an apostle of racial equality, and a paragon of social justice,” Joseph Fallon writes in his important new, must-read book, Lincoln Uncensored. This view of Lincoln, writes Fallon, is only true “in official histories or in Hollywood movies” but not in reality. The reason for this historical disconnect is that “this myth of Lincoln, not the Constitution . . . now confers legitimacy on the political system of the United States.” Despite being mostly a bundle of lies, it is nevertheless the ideological cornerstone of statism in America and has been for nearly 150 years. The real Lincoln was a dictator and a tyrant who shredded the Constitution, fiendishly orchestrated the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens, and did it all for the economic benefit of the special interests who funded the Republican Party (and his own political career).

~ Tom DiLorenzo, "The Real Lincoln in His Own Words," LewRockwell.com, June 5, 2013

Tom DiLorenzo on the myth of the morally superior Yankee

The idea of Yankee moral superiority was carefully crafted almost from the time of the Pilgrims. By 1861, New England Yankees and their Midwestern cousins had concocted the myth of a free, white, and virtuous New England that, by virtue of its moral superiority, had a right to remake all other sections of the U.S. in its own image, creating a Heaven on Earth (i.e., the New England-ization of North America). A corollary of this myth was the notion of the morally corrupt, slave-owning South.

But the notion of a morally superior New England Yankee nation is all a myth, as is explained in great detail by Joanne Pope Melish in her book, Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and Race in New England, 1780—1860 (Cornell University Press, 1998). Professor Melish, who teaches at the University of Kentucky, documents how New England propagandists rewrote their own history, not unlike how the Soviets rewrote Russian history, to say that slavery in that part of the country was only very brief and very benevolent.

The truth of the matter is that slavery existed in New England for more than 200 years (beginning in 1638) and it was every bit as degrading and dehumanizing as slavery anywhere.

~ Tom DiLorenzo, "The Myth of the Morally Superior Yankee," LewRockwell.com, February 10, 2004

Kevin Duffy on Love Canal, a "Big Lie in plain sight"

Here is an example of official narrative: Love Canal. For the official version, go to the EPA's website: https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/love-canal-tragedy.html. Notice that the lead-up to the crisis is short, while the crisis part is in horrific detail. 

Now go the the Wikipedia page, a relatively neutral site:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal. If you read the section "Sale of the site," you'll notice some important details were left out by the EPA.

Curious to know what really happened from an investigative journalist? Check this out: https://reason.com/1981/02/01/love-canal.

The real story is almost 180 degrees from the EPA version. Yet this Big Lie in plain sight continues to be perpetuated by documentarians to this day.

~ Kevin Duffy

Caitlin Johnstone on official narratives

It’s much easier to continue believing the official narratives than to sort through everything you’ve been told about your society, your nation and your world since grade school and work out what’s true and what’s false. Many don’t have the time. Many more don’t have the courage.

~ Caitlin Johnstone, "Propaganda is the Root of All Our Problems," LewRockwell.com, June 14, 2019

Friedrich Hayek on the role of official myths in totalitarian systems

[I]n the disciplines dealing directly with human affairs and therefore most immediately affecting political views, such as history, law, or economics, the disinterested search for truth cannot be allowed In a totalitarian system, and the vindication of the official views becomes the sole object...  These disciplines have, indeed, in all totalitarian countries become the most fertile factories of the official myths  which the rulers use to guide the minds and wills of their subjects.  It is not surprising that in these spheres even the pretense that they search for truth is abandoned...

~ "The Road to Serfdom," Chapter 11, “The End of Truth,” p. 161

Mencken on critical thinking

A sound American is simply one who has put out of his mind all doubts and questionings, and who accepts instantly, and as incontrovertible gospel, the whole body of official doctrine of his day, whatever it may be and no matter how often it may change. The instant he challenges it, no matter how timorously and academically, he ceases by that much to be a loyal and creditable citizen of the republic.

~ H.L. Mencken