Re-writing the Constitution

There are quite a few Right Wing watch groups these days, but one of the blogs I enjoy is that of Warren Throckmorton, who has gone after David Barton and others attempting to inculcate their perverted interpretations of history on unsuspecting Americans. One of the more recent examples is the so-called Institute on the Constitution, which presents a very Puritanical interpretation of the Constitution, audaciously claiming that the Founding Fathers were influenced by early Puritan ministers, not the Age of Enlightenment.

The Institute of the Constitution is offering a 12-part lecture series over the Internet, as well as taking their show on the road to anyone who will host them, and apparently there are many willing hosts. While it seems organizations such as this one are working primarily through the conservative Evangelical community, the so-called scholars behind these tracts are getting wide spread attention through conservative media outlets, and their work appears to have influenced much of the Conservative view of history as espoused by GOP legislators at both the state and federal level.

The numerous books, which are being published through Thomas Nelson and other conservative printing presses, are making their way into school curriculi around the country. Barton is particularly active in Texas in promoting new statewide curriculum reading, and as the New York Review of Books reported sometime back, as Texas goes so goes the nation when it comes to high school textbooks.

Not since the Dunning School has there been such an orchestrated attempt to reshape history, only William Archibald Dunning was actually a respected professor at Columbia University, whereas the current conservative crop of so-called historians hail from such universities as Oral Roberts with degrees in religious education, not history.

David Whitney, who heads up the Institute of the Constitution makes no bones about his conservative religious agenda, as active as Barton in promulgating these "American views" anywhere he can, oblivious to the criticism.

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The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Dylan in America

Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan. Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose. Looks like only yesterday. Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005

Dispatches from Vilnius

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