Re: US strike options on TSP

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 10 Sep 2014 23:28

But Scotland has its own history. I once went on a bus pilgrimage to St. Nessie's Loch. The guide had a tough time keeping up with the speed at which the bus went past the Historic sites:

This is where the Campells murdhered the McDholalds..
This is where the McDhonalds murdhered the Campbells and burned their entire village
...

Small wonder the place seemed pretty sparsely populated.

Neshant · Post by **Neshant** » 11 Sep 2014 07:19

This is why desis are afraid of black men

Running a convenience store in the hood is an open invitation to get robbed & killed.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 11 Sep 2014 07:38

US xenophobia targets South Asian minorities: report
by Narayan Lakshman, thehindu.com
September 9th 2014 5:19 PM

South Asian Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, and some Arab communities have increasingly been at the receiving end of growing xenophobic undertones in the U.S.’ political rhetoric, which has in recent years become “has become more frequent, more insidious, and more likely to be featured on a national platform,” according to a report published here this week.

In its report on ‘Under Suspicion, Under Attack,’ the minority rights group South Asian Americans Leading Together said that 78 instances of xenophobic political speech and 76 examples of hate violence that it documented between January 2011 and April 2014 suggested that these communities lived a climate of growing hostility in American society today.

Among the key findings of the report is the revelation that there has been a marked increase in profiling and surveillance by law enforcement agencies, and the growth of an Islamophobia “industry” that demonises Muslims via the Internet and media.

The study noted that there has been a surge in “hate violence” over the past 13 years with the Department of Justice reporting that incidents of such violence against South Asian minority communities surged after 9/11 and have remained high with little variation.

Over 80 per cent of the instances of hate violence documented for this report were motivated by anti-Muslim sentiment, SAALT noted, though attacks on other faith communities often also involved “severe violence.”

The report cited an example of non-Muslim minorities facing discriminatory rhetoric, the case of Kentucky State Senator David Williams, who criticised the Kentucky Governor’s participation in a Hindu ground-breaking prayer for a new manufacturing plant.

Mr. Williams stated the Governor was worshiping “false gods,” the report said, and he suggested that all Hindus should open their eyes and find Jesus Christ.

Among its recommendations to the Obama administration the study called for the creation of a National Task Force to Prevent Hate Violence focused on addressing incidents directed at South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Middle Eastern, and Arab communities.

The study also urged the government to more rigorously enforce hate crimes legislation and ensure that law enforcement receive cultural and religious competency trainings to understand the challenges that the affected communities faced when reporting hate violence.

The SAALT report also targeted the DOJ’s 2003 Guidance on the Use of Race by Federal Law Enforcement, arguing that it was critical to prohibit profiling based on categories of national origin and religion, and to end “suspicion-less and discriminatory surveillance” of the minority communities by law enforcement agencies and investigate law enforcement for discriminatory practices.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 11 Sep 2014 20:34

During the recent 2014 primary elections for Governor of California, Neel Kashkari the Republican candidate was called a Pakistani by his Republican rival Donnelly. He later apologized upon being called out by the Kashkari Campaign Manager.

Bobby Jindal was also accused of being a Pakistani by the Democratic candidate for Louisiana Governor in 2004.

Many Indian students get hauled up by local police on suspicion of being Pakistanis.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 11 Sep 2014 21:47

In the robbery video above, is the woman saying "Krishna please help me", calling out to a colleague?

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 12 Sep 2014 01:59

Class Shows: The First Family Of The US of A
What we need to stand up to Putin

(hic!)

Neshant · Post by **Neshant** » 12 Sep 2014 06:36

JE Menon wrote:In the robbery video above, is the woman saying "Krishna please help me", calling out to a colleague?

I didn't realise that but apparently so.

Br0ther Krishna was nowhere around unfortunately.

That woman will be afraid of black men for life. Hell watching it I'm already afraid of them.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 12 Sep 2014 09:18

^^Neshant, this is a very specific beast - the lower income (by US standards) black in the US it appears.

Live in Africa, where they are just like everybody else simply trying to make a living and no more prone to crime than anyone else in any other country elsewhere, and you will not be afraid. Indians have been living in Africa for centuries without any real problem, at least not more than other Africans, from crime etc.

As for "Krishna" if he was around he did the right thing... She already took the punch. That criminal may have been packing. And certainly he was not the latest avatar of Krishna to stop a bullet in case the guy wanted to take her out, or stab her. No point in getting shot or stabbed himself in the process. Wait for criminal to exit scene, remember everything, let her do her super-urgent skype/email response on laptop and then casually saunter out of hiding place as if oblivious to the whole thing. Krishna did what we do better than anyone: survive & thrive.

Some people may call that cowardly. I personally wouldn't give a sh1t about such comments.

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 12 Sep 2014 11:18

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/invest ... and-seize/

This is the same civil forfeiture that was discussed earlier. The police are now no different than the lowest of the low police in UP and Bihar. Essentially they stop you and threaten you with a drug charge unless you pay up.

You know things are based when Canada CBC issues warnings about this.

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 12 Sep 2014 11:25

There is a bunch of new CNN cellphone videos from Ferguson taken at the moment of shooting that are worth seeing. Regadless of what happened before/after that brown guy was killed on purpose. There are white witnesses to that effect.

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 12 Sep 2014 20:22

Neshant wrote:This is why desis are afraid of black men

Speak for yourself. I don't personally care if anyone is black, brown, yellow, white, green, purple etc.

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 12 Sep 2014 22:16

That woman will be afraid of black men for life. Hell watching it I'm already afraid of them.

That's why you need to have gun with you in such situation. I know a person here locally who owns couple of convenience stores in a run down area. He got robbed couple of times and then he bought a gun. Next time one of these robbers came he chased him right on the street and shot him 5 times (He was lucky as bullet hit the robber in lower leg part as he hadn't practiced this gun and due to recoil the bullet goes down and only one bullet found the target). Store owner got a light sentence of "Felony" shooting in street.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 13 Sep 2014 00:19

Meet General Allen.
Not clear from the heading what they mean by "coordinating the ISIS alliance". On which side?

An investigation into "flirtatious" email exchanges between Allen and Jill Kelley, the Florida woman whose complaints about threatening emails from Petraeus' mistress, Paula Broadwell, brought the scandal into the public, led Allen to withdraw his nomination by Obama to become NATO's supreme allied commander in 2013. The Defense Department eventually cleared him of any wrongdoing, and Allen retired from the Marines.

Karma. He would otherwise have been E-Dyot-in-Chief, watching the video from Vodka-Liberated Luhansk, Donetsk, Mariupol, Kharkiv and then Kiev.

Neshant · Post by **Neshant** » 13 Sep 2014 13:16

SBajwa wrote:
That woman will be afraid of black men for life. Hell watching it I'm already afraid of them.
That's why you need to have gun with you in such situation..

Most Indians are not cool with the idea of owning let alone using a gun.

Besides, the brothas robbing the store may themselves be packing heat making a dangerous escalation all the more likely.

Better just to hand over money which is not likely to be very much anyway.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 13 Sep 2014 13:32

The problem is the violence perpetrated even when there is no need for it - what was the need to punch a pregnant woman. Its sheer sadism.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 13 Sep 2014 14:45

^^Absolutely. Casual violence. Probably practices it with regular monotony at home, thus very desensitized to this sort of thing. Very Paki.

Neshant · Post by **Neshant** » 13 Sep 2014 21:21

Crime stats for black men are extremely high.

So many are incarcerated in prison, that black women have great difficulty finding a husband who has a stable job and no criminal record.

Many black women end up as single mothers with the br0tha doing time in jail or just abandoning their progeny altogether. That's where this stems from. Employers and just about everyone else are afraid of hiring black men. They get no respect as everyone treats them as thieves.

Part of the anger against society must be coming from that.

saip · Post by **saip** » 13 Sep 2014 21:48

JE Menon wrote:^^Absolutely. Casual violence. Probably practices it with regular monotony at home, thus very desensitized to this sort of thing. Very Paki.

For whatever it is worth, he was arrested and charged with a felony assault.

Link

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 15 Sep 2014 04:38

Why Bobby Jindal Wants To Be White

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 15 Sep 2014 04:58

Recoil typically makes gun go up.

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 15 Sep 2014 23:50

Religion and the American armed forces : One army under God ?

The path from leaving Bibles in naval hotel rooms to placing weapons of mass destruction in the hands of religious zealots might seem rather a long one. But Mikey Weinstein, a former US Air Force captain who set up the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), argues with passion that both things are undesirable for the same reason, and both need to be opposed in the same spirit. His watchdog and campaign group has set itself the task of challenging a new variety of fundamentalism which it says is afoot in the services. It insists that America's armed forces, like every other form of state authority, must be religiously neutral in accordance with the Constitution.

One of the latest battles joined by the MRFF, and several other lobby groups, concerned the practice of leaving Bibles supplied by the Gideons, a charity which encourages the study of scripture, inside rooms in lodgings run by the navy. About a month ago, it emerged that Gideon Bibles had been removed from at least 3,000 rooms in navy lodges in response to secularist complaints. That in turn triggered massive protests from Christian and conservative lobby groups, and the Bibles were duly returned to the rooms. Mr Weinstein was disappointed: he insists that there is a real difference between making religious material available upon request at a registration desk, and placing such material—whether it be Christian, Muslim or even atheist—inside rooms. In his view, the latter practice indicates that the powers that be have taken the side of a particular religion, which the First Amendment forbids.

Whether Bibles are kept at registration desks or inside rooms may not seem all that big a deal. But the human stakes are higher in another religious-military row that erupted last month, when an atheist airman at a base in Nevada was denied the opportunity to re-enlist because he declined to say the words "so help me God". In an older air force regulation, it was laid down that those four words could be omitted on grounds of conscience; but this waiver was removed from a new rule issued last year—you either invoke the Deity or you cannot take up your responsibilities to the nation.

In Mr Weinstein's view, that change in the rules is a symptom of a new form of religious intolerance that has gained ground in the armed forces to the dismay of mainline Christians, among others. He calls the new religious mentality "dominionism"—a pejorative term for forms of Christianity that want to build religious principles into earthly power structures. One sceptical definition of "dominionism" describes it as "a theocratic view that...heterosexual Christian men are called by God to exercise dominion over secular society by taking control of political and cultural institutions."

Other signs of that mentality? An increasing number of cases where service personnel are bullied or denied promotion because they refuse to conform to the religious beliefs of their superiors. Very often the "superiors" are dominionist Christians—though it sometimes happens that a Christian soldier is bullied by an atheist superior, and the MRFF takes an equally dim view of that, says Mr Weinstein. The foundation says it has been approached by more than 38,000 service personnel, veterans or civilian defence workers with complaints about violations of their freedom to believe or not to believe, and 96% of these complaints come from Christians, many of them disturbed by extremist readings of their own faith which are being imposed on them in some way.

One example of Christians complaining about fundamentalism came in 2011 when 30 mostly Protestant or Catholic officers blew the whistle on a training course for nuclear-missile launch officers in California which drew on Jewish and Christian sources to vindicate the legitimacy of war. The course asserted that "there are many examples of believers engaged in wars in the Old Testament" and that "no pacifist sentiment [existed] in mainstream Jewish history." Whatever anyone may think about religious arguments for and against war, this is hardly a position which any arm of American authority can adopt without violating the constitutional separation between church and state.

Mr Weinstein insists that contrary to the stereotype some people might have, he is not a "Chardonnay-drinking liberal"—he is a Republican, and proud to come from a family with a strong military tradition. But he regards creeping fundamentalism as an impediment to a coherent military and hence a "national security issue". Besides, "mixing nuclear weapons with apocalyptic end-time theology is very dangerous." Even if they have an open mind about Bibles in hotel rooms, many people will say "Amen" to that.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 16 Sep 2014 02:49

http://www.buzzfeed.com/tabathaleggett/ ... tar#o5ypz3

If We Talked About Meat Eaters The Way We Talk About Vegetarians

member_22733 · Post by **member_22733** » 16 Sep 2014 05:07

Rony wrote:Why Bobby Jindal Wants To Be White

WTF! Tehelka writing articles that make sense! I cannot believe I am saying this.

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 16 Sep 2014 05:45

LokeshC wrote:WTF! Tehelka writing articles that make sense! I cannot believe I am saying this.

OT but there will always be once in a while Exceptions, Exceptions, Exceptions. Remember this article on EJs which Tehelka did which attracted lot of neutrals and center right folks to Tehelka only to get disappointed later.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 16 Sep 2014 22:57

Nausea / Brookhaveen-Sandia Alert

As bogus as it gets.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 25 Sep 2014 16:27

At Brown University, when women were sexually assaulted, the University Administration did nothing. The women, frustrated, started listing the names of rapists on the wall of one of the women's bathrooms, as a warning to other women. The university was extremely concerned, men's rights were being violated. The men -- they started their list of women who need to be raped.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/opini ... sited.html

The kind of "punishment" for the rapists, when they were "punished"? - write an apology letter to the victim; run some extra laps on the football field.

Remember, these are the privileged children of America.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 25 Sep 2014 16:46

Denial.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/j ... els-rising

..... In short, there seems there is nothing that can stop the waters washing over Miami completely.

It a devastating scenario. But what really surprises visitors and observers is the city's response, or to be more accurate, its almost total lack of reaction. The local population is steadily increasing; land prices continue to surge; and building is progressing at a generous pace. During my visit last month, signs of construction – new shopping malls, cranes towering over new condominiums and scaffolding enclosing freshly built apartment blocks – could be seen across the city, its backers apparently oblivious of scientists' warnings that the foundations of their buildings may be awash very soon.

Not that they are alone. Most of Florida's senior politicians – in particular, Senator Marco Rubio, former governor Jeb Bush and current governor Rick Scott, all Republican climate-change deniers – have refused to act or respond to warnings of people like Wanless or Harlem or to give media interviews to explain their stance, though Rubio, a Republican party star and a possible 2016 presidential contender, has made his views clear in speeches. "I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it. I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it, except it will destroy our economy," he said recently. Miami is in denial in every sense, it would seem. Or as Wanless puts it: "People are simply sticking their heads in the sand. It is mind-boggling."

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 25 Sep 2014 22:03

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... rd-of.html

Let’s start with the basics. What is The Gathering?

The Gathering is an annual event at which many of the wealthiest conservative to hard-right evangelical philanthropists in America—representatives of the families DeVos, Coors, Prince, Green, Maclellan, Ahmanson, Friess, plus top leaders of the National Christian Foundation—meet with evangelical innovators with fresh ideas on how to evangelize the globe. The Gathering promotes “family values” agenda: opposition to gay rights and reproductive rights, for example, and also a global vision that involves the eventual eradication of all competing belief systems that might compete with The Gathering’s hard-right version of Christianity. Last year, for example, The Gathering 2013 brought together key funders, litigants, and plaintiffs of the Hobby Lobby case, including three generations of the Green family.

The Gathering was conceived in 1985 by a small band of friends at the Arlington, Virginia, retreat center known as The Cedars, which is run by the evangelical network that hosts the annual National Prayer Breakfast. This stealthy network is known as The Family or The Fellowship. Jeff Sharlet’s book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power described it in great detail.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 25 Sep 2014 23:09

msnbc ‏@msnbc 56m

“This is shopping while black, and the result is death.” - @dorianwarren http://on.msnbc.com/1qwu286

The Justice Dept. will now investigate the killing by police of an African-American man with a toy BB gun in an Ohio Walmart. Trymaine Lee and Dorian Warren join.

If you are white you can parade with assault rifle almost anywhere but if you are a Black or a person of color do not even touch a toy gun or you'll shot dead.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 26 Sep 2014 01:25

Strange, but CNN appears to have graduated from its rape frenzy in India, to showing why America is No. 1 in rape frenzy.

Consider the front page todin:

US Man held for abduction with the intent to defile (woman student): probably murdered her too.

US State blames woman for being raped

US students rape their teachers

US man beats woman to death

CNN suggests enrolling women in US Fraternities so they can keep their raping in-house

The reports of sexual assault and gang rape associated with American fraternities have much more to do with this kind of American hyper-masculinity than with the binge drinking that is so frequently blamed. American men rape women because they believe they are entitled and because they think they can get away with it.

American actress gets restraining order to keep American Man from restraining and raping her again

"His grip was so tight that I could not breathe or speak," Hyland, 23, said in a sworn statement. "I was scared and in fear for my life."

American man football player: I try not to leave bruises when I rape wimens.

American Dad drugs daughter's 12-year-old friend, rapes her

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 26 Sep 2014 07:35

MIT Fraternity Readies Their Mijjiles to Counter Gravest Threat: Drunk Female Guests.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 26 Sep 2014 07:51

]Columbia University (woman) student carries mattress around to commemorate rape and Columbia University's failure to punish (alleged) rapist

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 26 Sep 2014 07:53

Michigan's 'Rape Insurance' Abortion Rider Law Goes Into Effect Today

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 27 Sep 2014 01:37

Rape does not seem to bother a whole lot of US judges.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow ... story.html
Man given 31 days for raping 14-year-old girl faces resentencing

A man who raped a 14-year-old girl in Montana and was initially given only 31 days in jail for the crime is set to be resentenced Friday by a different judge after the initial sentence was widely criticized and overturned.

The first sentencing of Stacey Dean Rambold, a 55-year-old former business teacher, earned national headlines last year when the judge who handed down the order stated that the teen victim was partially responsible for her rape.

...
The Montana Supreme Court publicly reprimanded Baugh for his conduct in the case and said he had “eroded public confidence in the judiciary and created an appearance of impropriety,” according to court filings. The judge was suspended for 31 days.

So much for an enlightened society.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 27 Sep 2014 01:40

http://www.salon.com/2014/09/26/the_u_s ... s_outrage/

The U.S. has a shamefully high infant mortality rate. Where’s the pro-life GOP’s outrage?

“I think we’ve known for a long time that the U.S. has a higher preterm birth rate, but this higher infant mortality rate for full-term, big babies who should have really good survival prospects is not what we expected,” Marian MacDorman, the lead author of the report and a senior statistician and researcher with the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, told MedicineNet.com.

...
Earlier this year, the United Nations called on the United States to address the racial disparities in our healthcare system for exactly this reason. “The U.S. has more health resources than any other country, yet women of color are dying from preventable causes and failing to get the reproductive health care they need,” said Katrina Anderson, senior human rights counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights. ”No woman in the U.S. should endure such poor care because of her immigration status or race.”

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 27 Sep 2014 01:57

More on CNN ~~Front~~ orgies Page:
Chief Operating Officer terminates, then REALLY terminates, worker.
Only one employee beheaded.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 28 Sep 2014 12:47

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/09 ... es-police/

Obama decries 'gulf of mistrust' between minorities, police

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Saturday said the widespread mistrust of law enforcement that was exposed by the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Mo. is corroding America, not just its black communities, and that the wariness flows from significant racial disparities in the administration of justice.

Speaking at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual awards dinner, Obama said these suspicions only harm communities that need law enforcement the most.

"It makes folks who are victimized by crime and need strong policing reluctant to go to the police because they may not trust them," he said. "And the worst part of it is it scars the hearts of our children," leading some youngsters to unnecessarily fear people who do not look like them while leading others to constantly feel under suspicion no matter what they do.

"That is not the society we want," Obama said. "It's not the society that our children deserve."

...
"Too many young men of color feel targeted by law enforcement -- guilty of walking while black or driving while black, judged by stereotypes that fuel fear and resentment and hopelessness," he said.

He said significant racial disparities remain in the enforcement of law, from drug sentencing to applying the death penalty, and that a majority of Americans think the justice system treats people of different races unequally.

....
"African American girls are more likely than their white peers also to be suspended, incarcerated, physically harassed," Obama said. "Black women struggle every day with biases that perpetuate oppressive standards for how they're supposed to look and how they're supposed to act. Too often, they're either left under the hard light of scrutiny, or cloaked in a kind of invisibility. "

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 28 Sep 2014 16:34

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... es/379328/

The Society of Fugitives

One consequence of racism and segregation is that many American whites know little or nothing about the daily lives of African Americans. Black America’s least-understood communities are those poor, hyper-segregated places we once called ghettos. These neighborhoods are not far away, but they might as well be on the moon. The only news most people ever hear about the inner city comes from grim headlines; the only residents they can name are characters on The Wire.

...
Anderson looked at interactions between police and young black men in Philadelphia. He found that such men were at constant risk of being stopped, harassed, and even arrested, whether or not they had committed a crime. In these circumstances, Anderson wrote, a black youth “knows, or soon finds out, that he exists in a legally precarious state. Hence he is motivated to avoid the police, and his public life becomes severely circumscribed.”

...
The police, in Goffman’s portrayal in On the Run, are at full-fledged war with residents. They beat up people under arrest, steal from suspects, smash up homes while serving warrants, and use the results of surveillance to turn lovers or family members against one another. Such behavior shocks Goffman, at least at first. But the neighborhood’s longtime residents are more resigned. To them, police raids are like thunderstorms: take cover if you can, and don’t go back outside until it stops raining.

...
In places like Sixth Street, Goffman argues, “the sheer scope of policing and imprisonment … is transforming community life in ways that are deep and enduring, not only for the young men who are their targets but for their family members, partners, and neighbors.” She writes at length, for instance, about how the police coerce mothers and girlfriends into revealing a fugitive’s whereabouts by threatening them with arrest, eviction, or loss of custody of their children.

...
Goffman is a compelling writer, and she supports her argument with one vivid anecdote after another. Her descriptions of aggressive surveillance and gratuitously violent arrests are consistent with earlier research on policing in poor urban communities. Her terrifying accounts of abusive behavior by police executing search warrants also echo stories I heard from countless clients during my six years as a public defender in Washington, D.C.

...
It is also worth considering whether the young men in On the Run are representative of young men in low-income black neighborhoods. In one important sense, they are. Nationally—not just on Sixth Street—staggering percentages of black men between the ages of 20 and 29 are under criminal-justice supervision. The Sentencing Project estimates the proportion at one in three. In the poorest neighborhoods, it’s even higher.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 28 Sep 2014 16:45

^^Thanks for that... It is amazing to read things like this; in comparison our pandus seem downright docile... Check this out: "The police... are at full-fledged war with residents. They beat up people under arrest, steal from suspects, smash up homes while serving warrants, and use the results of surveillance to turn lovers or family members against one another....neighborhood’s longtime residents are more resigned. To them, police raids are like thunderstorms: take cover if you can, and don’t go back outside until it stops raining".

WHAT???? Is this America? Seriously, people who live there, is this kind of thing actually happening?

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 28 Sep 2014 17:10

America at its best:

This is a tale of two countries.

The first country was built on a radical new promise of human equality and a guarantee of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That country made it possible for even those born in the humblest and most meager circumstances to climb to the pinnacle of prosperity and achievement. It helped save the world in a great global conflagration, fed and rebuilt the devastated nations of Europe, planted the first footprints on another world.

The second country was built on the uncompensated labor of human beings owned from birth till death by other human beings. That country committed genocide against its indigenous people, fabricated a war in order to snatch territory belonging to its neighbor, put its own citizens in concentration camps. And it practiced the “science” of eugenics with such enthusiasm that it inspired advocates of mandatory sterilization and racial purity all over the world. One was an obscure German politician named Adolf Hitler.

Obviously, the first of those countries is America. But the second is, too.

This would not come as a surprise to any reasonably competent student of American history. But that is a category that soon may not include students in Jefferson County, Colo. The good news is, they are not taking it lying down.

To the contrary, hundreds of them staged mass walkouts from at least five area high schools last week. They chanted and held up signs in protest of a proposed directive from a newly elected conservative school board member that would require teachers of history to “promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free enterprise system.”

Teachers are further told to emphasize “positive aspects” of U.S. heritage and to avoid lessons that “encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law.”

Like, say, the Civil Rights Movement.

To the students’ credit, they recognized this for the act of intellectual vandalism it was and did a very American thing. They protested. As of late last week, the board was promising to revise the proposal, claiming it had been misunderstood.

Actually, it was understood all too well. One frequently sees these efforts to whitewash the ugliness out of American history. The state of Virginia was ridiculed in 2010 for a history book which falsely claimed thousands of black soldiers fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. The state of Arizona passed a law that same year restricting ethnic studies classes under the theory that they tend to “promote resentment toward a race or class of people.”

Now, here are educators in Colorado promoting a “happy history” that will leave students positive, patriotic — and ignorant.

There is a reason courts require witnesses to tell “the truth, the whole truth.” To tell half the truth is to tell a lie of omission. And in this tale of two countries, the whole truth is not summed up in the triumphs of the first country any more than in the sins of the second. America is both those nations. And American history, properly understood, is a story about the summit we sometimes reach and the sewer we too often tread, about the work of resolving the tension between America’s dream and its reality.

Such complexity tends to frighten and confuse small-minded people who think you can’t love your country and question it, too, can’t celebrate its glories if you acknowledge its failures. So instead they embrace this “happy history” that is stagnant, barren and antithetical to progress. Why would you work to resolve the tension between the dream and the reality if you’ve been taught that the dream is the reality?

Censoring history is an act of cowardice. The Colorado demonstrations suggest that some of us, at least, are still brave enough for the truth.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn- ... rylink=cpy