More of history's lies. Marie Antoinette. Let them eat cake. Queen Victoria, The Irish Famine. The American Revolution.

Agueststwocentsgivenforfree 19 months ago

This is pretty typical actually, and by far not the only cases:

1.) That redcoat site for instance may tell another story from british view, but also dismisses the use of the Hessians: when Washington crossed the Delaware the Hessians were supposedly drunk because of Christmas, but surviving members and an officer attested that it was not the case: the Hessians were worn from raids of guerilla groups while also suffering from the cold weather, Washington's attack was indeed a surprise, but the counterattack mounted by Rall, albeit unsuccessful, wasn't performed by people running into eachother and tripping over their own feet.

2.) America winning WWII and saving all the other Nations, its true that America contributed towards the end of WWII and complicated German's defenses as it has forced him to fight on two fronts, but roughly 70% of the German losses were on the Soviet front, the troops sent to that front were also proportional to it. Americans also assume that Japan suffered less losses because they nuked them, instead of invading, this would only hold true if the American landing force was specifically told to massacre everyone and Japan (after losing to China and in an embargo to begin with) wouldn't surrender at all. If some sources are to believed, the Emperor was already going to surrender, but they dropped the nuke anyways to test it. But I'm not here for too much speculation.

3.) "China worships Mao, invades stuff and enforces communism everywhere", this is mostly because China is often seen as rival (after the soviets are gone now) to the States, but China has throughout 4000 years of history repeatedly proven to be a mostly benevolent (though strict) Nation. In the Korean War, China left North Korea to its own devices after saving it from the UN(US) invasion, while South Korea, after beign saved from the NK invasion was made to a military dictature, then went through several authoritarian "democracies" that weren't really much different than dictatures before it finally became the South Korea of today. In the Indo-Chinese border dispute, China also retreated back to its border instead of continuing to fight with India and even returned any land it stepped over during the war, Chinese soldiers also stopped any pursuit of Indians who escaped over Burma's border. Even today, Burma maintains independence which is respected, all that while being right next to - and significantly easier to conquer than - Tibet. China is also barely communist, capitalist, democracy, or anything. I'm not saying there are no human right issues, but its just being incredibly pragmatic about everything and takes what works rather than using a predefined "franchise" form of government (including allowing other government forms exist within). China's actions are mostly for profit which is in the big picture, ultimately a good thing. They had the choice: discipline, or become a 2nd poor "Africa" to drag the rest of the World. And finally, a meme called "Oba Mao" was outlawed prior to President Obama's visit because the Chinese government thought it might be insulting if the US president is compared to a War criminal responsible for millions of deaths.

4.) China oppresses Falun Gong and Tibet and religions in general, while China doesn't exactly have a pristine human rights record, its not quite because they are slow to catch up on it, its because developing everything else is going so fast. What was formerly a starving, broken down Nation grew to a superpower formerly overnight, but lets not dodge the question with this. China requires Religions to keep within its laws, which is understandable, you wouldn't allow a religion that thinks rape and murder and sacrificing virgins to an alien diety because of "freedom of religion" for instance. Falun Gong's problem is mainly that it has caught the attention of the government in all the wrong ways. Falun Gong might declare to be based on love and harmony and unicorns and rainbows like - oh right every other religion out there, but the distinct features remain that Li Hong Zhi (the spiritual leader) thinks aliens are cloning mankind and replacing us (to all Falun cultists out there: I AM XENU AND IMMA CHARGIN MA LAZORZ!!!) and that he has declared illness cannot be treated by medicine but must be removed by "cultivation". Not that Tai Qi is wrong, but Tai Qi was never limited to Falun Gong and if statistics were any indication, it can't cure your cancer. While suicide may be a sin in Falun Gong, the actions that lead to death aren't considered suicide: If you refuse your children medical attention, you're not really endangering them, you're just "truly curing them"! Cutting your stomache open isn't suicide either, as you'll obviously find the Falun (some spinny wheel thing) inside you and be enlightened. The clearwisdom site is the Propaganda machine of this cult, and pretty much runs by "Look, dead babies, do you believe NOW China is evil?". As for Chinese oppression of Tibet in terms of religion, that may have been the case in Mao's times, but that was several decades ago. Besides, how should China even consider to oppress Buddhism (which is the religion of Tibetans)? Whats happening is merely an uncontrollable mob who have gone against the Dalai Lhama's advice not to be violent and duely deserve a crackdown like any sane Nation would for preserving safety in the General Public.

5.) Taiwan is democratic and wants independence from China, (yeah another one related to China, it just happens to be the recent hate magnet along with muslims) people keep forgetting how Taiwan's modern government came to be: After the communists beat the corrupt regime of the Nationalists, they fled to Taiwan. Soon after they arrived, the native Taiwanese got a taste of why the Chinese were rooting for the communists and started an uprising which was then solved by firepower. While Taiwan today is far from these savage practices, though it still has parlamental fisticuffs and one of two major factions is pro-China, or at the very least sceptical about independence.

6.) Pakistan supports terrorists, this may be half true, it wouldn't be a surprise if rich terrorists could buy some cover, but Pakistan itself is far from pro-terrorism. It is not only allied with the States, but also the second biggest supplier of troops to the UN, that considering Pakistan's size is a phenomenal contribution, thousands of Pakistanis have their lives on the line for World Peace, and how does the World thank them? Call them terrorists at the next best moment. Why is that so? Because Pakistan has a rivalry with India, a Nation with sympathy and more importantly, more people that will buy or produce stuff. Realizing this, America throws away the condom that is Pakistan and sides with India at a moment's notice.

Misconceptions grow more ridiculous with relative distance away form the United States, which has the big chunk of the English speaking International community of the Internet, go figure.

Andrew 18 months ago

So Queen Victoria gave £2000 for Irish relief instead of £5. I'm sure we could dig up the records and find that she spent more than that on many other less worthy expenses that year. To add insult to injury, you say this was the largest contribution. I wonder what Her Majesty and the aristocracy might have contributed had a similar situation might have arisen in London.

Unfortunately, most people seem to believe that the famine was due to a natural disaster, and not due a extreme inequity and racism. I've even had a university economics professor use Malthus to justify what happened. The trouble with this theory was that even during the famine, food, particularly cattle, were being exported from Ireland during the famine. My mother's family and thousands of others were cleared off their land during the height of the famine to make way for cattle that could be sold to feed Her Majesty's soldiers.

The fact is, very little was done to help other than window dressing.

The five pound story is very interesting. My father in law has an even more inflammatory quotation attributed to Victoria,"Let them eat their children." She may not have said it publicly but there wouldn't have been a shortage of Victorian elites to using quacks such as Malthus to justify such sentiments. My father in law is a Catholic raised in Northern Ireland. He is certainly no republican, having put his life on the line many times against the IRA as one of the few Catholic members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

I'm glad to hear that Victoria gave more than five pounds to the Irish. I'm sure she did all that she could and could sleep easy at night, knowing they now had a fortuitous solution to this Irish problem. No appology or redress needed, it's not like the Chinese head tax situation or the Indian residential schools. It was just a natural disaster, right?

mysterylady 89 14 months ago

Thank you for directing me to this interesting history lesson. How little I know!