Hollywood's Complicity in the Lost Cause Myth

[Fizzzzle]

I didn't end up meaning on writing this much about it, but... when I get on a roll...

 

 

So, as some of you might have seen on here in the past, deconstructing and dismantling the Lost Cause myth is something of a hobby of mine. Mainly because I was taken in by it as a child and it took me until I was in my 20’s to unfuck my brain of that ridiculous bullshittery, so now I like to shit on it whenever I have the opportunity because it makes me feel better.

 

In case anyone doesn’t know, the “Lost Cause” myth is a reactionary reconstruction of the narrative of the Civil War that started to get perpetrated around the end of the 1870’s and has only ever grown in strength, to the point where myself, who grew up in fucking Portland, Oregon of all places in the 1990’s, was taught a version of it in schools. Basically, it paints the Civil War as a point of moral ambiguity - the “war of Northern Aggression,” or a fight over tariffs, or states’ rights, or any other bullshit excuse to shift blame of the war away from our glorious and honorable ancestors, who never dreamed of anything other than sittin’ on their glorious porch, sipping glorious lemonade, and dreaming of freedom, gloriously. Lincoln? He was a tyrant who suspended habeas corpus and illegally confiscated southern property. The Union was covered in corruption. Our glorious Confederacy, on the other hand, was bathed in freedom. All they ever wanted was to escape the imperialist yolk of Washington. Slaves had it better under slavery, if anything! ...It’s basically a watered-down Holocaust denial. It doesn’t deny slavery existed, but it denies slavery as an actual reason anyone fought the Civil War as a way to absolve them of guilt. It’s like if Germany omitted any reference to lebensraum for why they fought WW2 and said it was about proposed tax hikes on exported lederhosens or whatever.

 

Now that the basis of the stupidity that is the Lost Cause myth has been laid out, there’s a few points that we need to get out of the way if you want a deep dive. I didn’t intend on doing a full Lost Cause dismantling, but once I get started, I kind of can’t stop. I’m not going to completely source this because this isn’t a research paper, but I guarantee you that you can find all of this information by googling it in less than 10 minutes.

 

Spoiler

1) - This is the most important one. While the Union (I’m going to call them the “American” army from here on, I just want to make that distinction before we keep going) was emphatically *not* fighting to eradicate slavery, at least at the beginning of the war, the Confederacy emphatically *was* fighting to protect and expand the institution of slavery. It was not about tariffs, it was not about “states’ rights,” it was about slavery. Full stop. 

 

Now you might be thinking “but only ~2% of the population of the south owned slaves! How could the average poor white person have gone to war over slavery?!”

 

2) - This statistic needs to be taken into context. Only the head of a household *technically* owned slaves. His wife, their children, probably some younger siblings, their overseers, etc. all *technically* did not own slaves. If you factor how many people came from slave-owning-*households*, the number gets a bit more nebulous. According to William Darity, a professor of African American Studies at Duke, it balloons pretty fast. In states like Mississippi and South Carolina, the number of whites who came from slave-owning households were as high as 50%. Even in states like Virginia, which were not as economically dependent on slavery, it was still as high as 20%. In states like West Virginia and Kentucky, it was not nearly as high, which is why they didn’t join the fucking Confederacy. See? If it wasn’t about slavery, why didn’t Kentucky secede, or why did West Virginia secede from Virginia?

 

But… what about tariffs?

 

3) - High tariffs absolutely was a campaign platform of Republicans in the 1860 election. Given that, which states do you think got hit hardest by high tariffs? Surely, it must have been South Carolina or Louisiana. Nope, wrong, it was New York. By far. Now, that’s not to say that the South was for higher tariffs - they were not. However, a big sticking point was that the imposition of high tariffs could cause a trade war with Britain, who was still dependent on southern cotton. It’s a nuanced issue, but to say that it was the cause of the Civil War is completely erroneous. Lots of people had lots of reasons to be for or against high tariffs, even in the north. Not to mention the Morrill Tariff wasn’t passed until *after* most of the South had already seceded, so to say that it was a *cause* for secession is blatantly false.

 

... BUT NORTHERN AGGRESSION!

 

- Wrong. We can break this down a bit. Ignoring what we traditionally consider to be the “start” of the war, which is when CONFEDERATE troops fired on Ft. Sumter, we can actually go back a bit further than that. From the dates of secession, the seizure of federal property (including forts, lighthouses, and arms) started almost immediately. The only Confederate state to secede after Lincoln took office was Virginia. Every other confederate state seceded before that even happened, and almost immediately started seizing federal stockpiles. The Confederate government mustered their first official army at the end of February, 1861, a full month before Lincoln even took office.

 

But… poor white people fighting a rich man’s war?

 

- if there’s one thing rich people are good at, it’s pitting one group of poor people against another. Ignoring the fact that a *lot* more white people owned slaves than you probably thought, the politicians had spent a long time fomenting fear among the poor white voters that if slavery were abolished, then the former slaves would come and take all of their jobs/land. It’s a tale as old as time. Lyndon B. Johnson famously said “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” That was as true in 1860 as it was in 1960. Just because a white southerner didn’t own slaves did not mean they were anti-slavery, and definitely didn’t mean they wouldn’t fight to protect it. Even those who did not own slaves were fighting to protect what they saw as their “way of life” or whatever.

 

Alright, I think that’s all I have to say on the Lost Cause, let’s get into the movies.

 

I have recently watched every Civil War movie to come out in the last 50 years, at least that I’m aware of. There aren’t that many, for reasons we’ll get into. Here they are:

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
Glory (1989)
Gettysburg (1993)
Ride with the Devil (1999)
Gangs of New York (2003)
Gods and Generals (2003)
Cold Mountain (2003)
Lincoln (2012)
Saving Lincoln (2013)
Field of Lost Shoes (2014)
Free State of Jones (2016)

 

There’s something that stands out right away when I look at this list of movies. In 4 of them (Glory, Gangs of New York, Lincoln, and Saving Lincoln), they don’t depict Confederates at all. There are literally no named Confederate characters in any of those movies. 2 of those movies (the terrible Gettysburg and Gods and Generals) “both-sides” the shit out of the war. Both of those movies, if anything, paint the Confederacy as the good guys, even going so far as giving Stonewall Jackson literal Christ symbolism when he dies in Gods and Generals. I could write a whole essay on those movies, why they suck and are also Lost Cause propaganda, but Atun-Shei Films on YouTube has already done a better job of that than I ever could.

 

In the rest of those movies (Josey Wales, Ride with the Devil, Cold Mountain, Field of Lost Shoes, and Free State of Jones), the main protagonists *are* Confederate soldiers who are all bucking the system in one way or another.

 

Do you see the problem here? Hollywood stops short of showing the Confederacy in an unequivocally bad light. The Confederacy either isn’t shown at all, is “both-side”d, or the main character *is* a part of the Confederacy.

 

Can you imagine if we did that with World War 2 movies? Like if the closest we ever got to showing Nazis as the bad guys was Dunkirk, where they’re never actually shown at all? In the rest of the movies we either have to give the “honorable” Nazis equal screen time or make the main protagonist a reluctant Nazi? I will say again, the Confederacy was FIGHTING TO PROTECT AND EXPAND SLAVERY. The Constitution of the Confederate States of America literally forbade individual states from abolishing slavery and required any new state to allow slavery. So much for fucking “states’ rights.” 

 

If there is any more doubt, here is an excerpt from Mississippi’s Declaration of Secession

Quote

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.

 

Here’s a nugget from Georgia’s Declaration of Secession

Quote

The Presidential election of 1852 resulted in the total overthrow of the advocates of restriction and their party friends. Immediately after this result the anti-slavery portion of the defeated party resolved to unite all the elements in the North opposed to slavery and to stake their future political fortunes upon their hostility to slavery everywhere. This is the party to whom the people of the North have committed the Government. They raised their standard in 1856 and were barely defeated. They entered the Presidential contest again in 1860 and succeeded.

 

Here’s a fun one from South Carolina

Quote

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

These fuckers are not, in any way, the “good guys.” Certain films like to get around that by having the main characters be Kansas bushwhackers - Kansas/Missouri was somewhere where the fighting was a lot more morally ambiguous. Whether you wound up fighting with the Jayhawkers or the Bushwhackers usually had much more to do with personal vengeance rather than ideology, especially after the war already started. Or they make sure that their main character is from a “poor” part of the south where they can’t grow cash crops and thus are unlikely to be connected to slavery, like Matthew McConaughey in Free State of Jones or Jude Law in Cold Mountain. 

All that waffling aside, one needs to ask - why? Why are there no Civil War movies in which the Confederacy are actively depicted as the bad guys in a non-ambiguous way? I think it’s because they’re worried that showing the Confederacy in that light is going to alienate a significant(ly stupid) part of the American consumer base. For some fucking reason, even though the Civil War happened 160 years ago when most of our grandparents’ grandparents weren’t even alive, we still can’t admit guilt about it. 140 years of constant campaigning that it *wasn’t* about slavery has a significant portion of the American population feeling salty about it in 2021. Your ancestors were not your friends - stop feeling the need to protect them.

I understand that from an economic sense. Civil War movies with big battles are expensive, and probably won’t do that well outside of America. You don’t want 40% of your American base to have their widdle feewings hurt by showing their distant Confederate ancestors as being the villains. The problem is they WERE the villains. We need to start fucking remembering that.

 

The dancing around of the fact that the Confederate States of America were 100% fighting to protect and expand an institution that was 100% evil incarnate in movies has directly contributed to the further perpetuation of the Lost Cause myth. And it wasn’t just the rich southerners making the poor southerners go and fight (though that did happen - the Confederacy actually implemented their first draft almost an entire year before the American army implemented one), the people voted to secede in the first place because they *wanted* to keep slavery, and it’s not like they didn’t know it would likely lead to war.
 

[SaysWho?]

Elton John's 'My Father's Gun' kind of does this as well as it's about reinforcing Confederate troops who are losing badly, but I'll be damned if it's not a fine song with a thrilling climax:

 

 

 

Separately, and I'd hate to sound mean, but I feel like liberals can be useful idiots when it comes to this notion.

[Fizzzzle]

10 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

Elton John's 'My Father's Gun' kind of does this as well as it's about reinforcing Confederate troops who are losing badly, but I'll be damned if it's not a fine song with a thrilling climax:

 

 

 

Separately, and I'd hate to sound mean, but I feel like liberals can be useful idiots when it comes to this notion.

Dont' get me wrong, it is a fine song. And Josey Wales, Ride with the Devil, and Cold Mountain are all great movies. You'll never hear me say otherwise.

 

It just goes back to what I said about imagining if we treated WW2 in movies like we treat the Civil War. Like we can't fully commit to showing the Confederacy as evil. Individual slave owners, sure, but not our glorious Confederate army as a whole, no... that's going too far. We don't give two shits about hurting the feelings of Nazis, but a racist class of white supremacists who subjugated an entire race of people for hundreds of years and went to war specifically to continue being able to do so? ... We need to be delicate about that, we don't want to hurt their feelings.

[Bloodporne]

Funny timing because I just tried to watch Josey Wales for the first time on the weekend and I turned it off about an hour in. I watch, and listen to, a lot of shit I don't agree with it but for some reason this movie really pissed me off and I tend to really like Eastwood. 

[SuperSpreader]

I went to school in TX and this is the first time I hear of this Lost Cause loser story. It was about Slavery, end of story. Eat shit everyone!!

[SaysWho?]

3 minutes ago, SuperSpreader said:

I went to school in TX and this is the first time I hear of this Lost Cause loser story. It was about Slavery, end of story. Eat shit everyone!!

 

Please write a US history textbook where the civil war chapter is just the bold.

 

16 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

Dont' get me wrong, it is a fine song. And Josey Wales, Ride with the Devil, and Cold Mountain are all great movies. You'll never hear me say otherwise.

 

It just goes back to what I said about imagining if we treated WW2 in movies like we treat the Civil War. Like we can't fully commit to showing the Confederacy as evil. Individual slave owners, sure, but not our glorious Confederate army as a whole, no... that's going too far. We don't give two shits about hurting the feelings of Nazis, but a racist class of white supremacists who subjugated an entire race of people for hundreds of years and went to war specifically to continue being able to do so? ... We need to be delicate about that, we don't want to hurt their feelings.

 

I agree, which is also why I added the bit about liberals because, believe it or not, it was @ByWatterson, when he was still a Republican, who educated me in-person about how "states' rights" was revisionist history.

 

I was that useful idiot once. >_>

[Fizzzzle]

4 minutes ago, SuperSpreader said:

I went to school in TX and this is the first time I hear of this Lost Cause loser story. It was about Slavery, end of story. Eat shit everyone!!

When I was growing up, in school it was more like "it was about slavery but also blah blah blah..."

 

No, there is no "also", it was entirely about slavery and the south trying to protect slavery.

[brucoe]

To be honest, as much as I love the series, I've always felt that Firefly was a roundabout way to glorify the Confederacy by focusing on a loveable group of misfits that fought against the Union. Yeah, it's in the future and all that, but I really have a hard time thinking that Whedon didn't do exactly what I suspect he did in creating the narrative of this show. And yeah, I know a lot of people will deny this because of the love of the show (like I said: I love it, too), but it's a hill I plan to die on.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

The very words of the Confederate leaders themselves put the lie to the notion that the war was about anything other than slavery.

[SaysWho?]

9 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

The very words of the Confederate leaders themselves put the lie to the notion that the war was about anything other than slavery.

 

My favorite thing to do when someone tries to argue otherwise is quote to them passages of, say, South Carolina's declaration of secession where they talk about non-slaveholding states' hostility to slavery.

 

Then it's, "That's just South Carolina."

 

Then you show them Alabama and their new union with "slaveholding" states.

 

"You can't use two random speeches to broad brush the Confederacy."

 

Then you tell them that's how they declared they were no longer in the union, not just random speeches, and you bombard them with every other state that explicitly talked about the north as being "non-slaveholding" or how slavery should continue forever (Texas: "[Texas] was received [by the Confederacy] as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery...which her people intended should exist in all future time.") and were explicit about white supremacy (Texas: "They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy," or Mississippi: "It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.") which is followed by the person either blocking you or silence.

 

It's fun to see them entrench themselves when you know they'll go straight for, "That was just one state that said that!" if you start with just one state's racist declarations.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

In my mind, The "Lost Cause Myth" can also be held directly responsible for the failure of Reconstruction in the former Confederate states.

 

 

[Fizzzzle]

2 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

In my mind, The "Lost Cause Myth" can also be held directly responsible for the failure of Reconstruction in the former Confederate states.

 

 

I just watched that yesterday!

 

I like him a lot, but he needs to get someone to speak for him. I just can't take his voice for very long.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Just now, Fizzzzle said:

I just watched that yesterday!

 

I like him a lot, but he needs to get someone to speak for him. I just can't take his voice for very long.

 

Yeah - he's not exactly the most dynamic orator.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Even aside from all of this, those who still perpetuate this lost cause nonsense are typically Republicans so it's always worth examining how, why, and what context the Republican party was created and why the whigs dissolved as a political force in such short time.

 

*Seeing aside the party switch in the mood 20th century

[Mr.Vic20]

41 minutes ago, brucoe said:

To be honest, as much as I love the series, I've always felt that Firefly was a roundabout way to glorify the Confederacy by focusing on a loveable group of misfits that fought against the Union. Yeah, it's in the future and all that, but I really have a hard time thinking that Whedon didn't do exactly what I suspect he did in creating the narrative of this show. And yeah, I know a lot of people will deny this because of the love of the show (like I said: I love it, too), but it's a hill I plan to die on.

Much as I love the show, it most definitely was glorifying the idea that freedom washes all sins and that government will always create Unforgivable alternatives. 

[SuperSpreader]

I'm glad I never enjoyed firefly then. 

[jinx8402]

48 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

The very words of the Confederate leaders themselves put the lie to the notion that the war was about anything other than slavery.

Hell, it was like the first thing mentioned in like every state's declaration of secession. 

 

The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States

WWW.BATTLEFIELDS.ORG

---

The Declaration of Causes made by Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas.

 

[SaysWho?]

53 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Even aside from all of this, those who still perpetuate this lost cause nonsense are typically Republicans

 

[Nokra]

If anyone is looking to read a book by a historian on the Lost Cause narrative that well illustrates precisely how the Confederacy was about slavery and how/why the myth is perpetuated, I can recommend a book I read last year called The False Cause: Fraud, Fabrication, and White Supremacy in Confederate Memory by Prof. Adam Domby.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

53 minutes ago, Nokra said:

If anyone is looking to read a book by a historian on the Lost Cause narrative that well illustrates precisely how the Confederacy was about slavery and how/why the myth is perpetuated, I can recommend a book I read last year called The False Cause: Fraud, Fabrication, and White Supremacy in Confederate Memory by Prof. Adam Domby.

That's on my wishlist.

[thewhyteboar]

Great thread. I appreciate any post that tackles Westerns. 

 

I think The Searchers actually handles the Confederacy quite decently, even if it isn'ta major part of the movie. Ethan is an obvious monster and not fit for civil modern society. 

 

Gone With the Wind is responsible for so much Lost Cause bullshit. The lords and ladies courtly genteel horseshit that just makes me want to vomit.

[Nokra]

8 hours ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

That's on my wishlist.

Let me know if you want a signed copy and I can probably get you one. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Just now, Nokra said:

Let me know if you want a signed copy and I can probably get you one. 

Well hell yeah. Since I haven’t bought it yet. 

[Nokra]

Just now, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Well hell yeah. Since I haven’t bought it yet. 

Ha ok I'll see what I can do. My ex girlfriend was in his cohort in grad school at UNC Chapel Hill and he and I are Facebook friends at least, so we're basically BFFs. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

5 minutes ago, Nokra said:

Ha ok I'll see what I can do. My ex girlfriend was in his cohort in grad school at UNC Chapel Hill and he and I are Facebook friends at least, so we're basically BFFs. 

Haha, nice. Just let me know. I don’t have to rush out and get it because lord knows I’m not lacking for reading options. But I did recently see it recommended in a FB group I’m in, so I added it to my list. 

[Guest]

When people make the “it was about states’s rights!!!1!!1!” argument I just say something to the effect of “It is true that the civil war was about state’s rights. The right in question was the right for states to continue the institution of slavery.”

 

A bit of a conversation stopper

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

3 hours ago, sblfilms said:

When people make the “it was about states’s rights!!!1!!1!” argument I just say something to the effect of “It is true that the civil war was about state’s rights. The right in question was the right for states to continue the institution of slavery.”

 

A bit of a conversation stopper

“No it was about tariffs” I got once in the wild.  When I essentially said the same thing

[Fizzzzle]

5 hours ago, sblfilms said:

When people make the “it was about states’s rights!!!1!!1!” argument I just say something to the effect of “It is true that the civil war was about state’s rights. The right in question was the right for states to continue the institution of slavery.”

 

A bit of a conversation stopper

 

1 hour ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

“No it was about tariffs” I got once in the wild.  When I essentially said the same thing

 

"Their right to do what, exactly?"

 

I can't stand for how we politicize the fucking Civil War in the 21st century. Almost all of my great-great-great grandfathers fought in the civil war, on both sides. Guess what? Every single fucking one of those shitstains were racist assholes, regardless of which side they fought on. Fight me about it - oh wait, they can't, they're dead. And don't get me wrong - the United States was not fighting to eliminate slavery, at least in the first couple years of the war, but the Confederacy abso-fucking-lutely was fighting to preserve and expand it. The fact that this is a political issue in 2021 makes me sad.

 

That's not to say that every single confederate soldier was fighting to preserve slavery. Some fought to defend their home from what they saw as a foreign invader. So did some Germans by the end of WW2.

 

That doesn't make them correct, and it doens't make your ancestors your friends. If you met your great-great-great grandfather today, you would probably hate each other. He is not your friend, nor your ally. Stop defending him. He assuredly would not defend you.

[Guest]

Twitch Adds Bannable Phrases “Damn,” “Butthole,” and “Actually the Civil War Was Not About States Rights”

HARD-DRIVE.NET

---

Twitch has announced further additions to its list of bannable phrases, including “damn,” “butthole,” and “actually, the civil war was not about states rights.” 

Fizz has been perma’d from his Twitch channel 😭

[Fizzzzle]

24 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

Twitch Adds Bannable Phrases “Damn,” “Butthole,” and “Actually the Civil War Was Not About States Rights”

HARD-DRIVE.NET

---

Twitch has announced further additions to its list of bannable phrases, including “damn,” “butthole,” and “actually, the civil war was not about states rights.” 

Fizz has been perma’d from his Twitch channel 😭

Just as my twitch thot career was in its infancy. I was going to wear a thong in a hot tub and run a just chat thirst trap channel where all we talked about was lost cause mythology.

 

Foiled by the man once again...

[TyphoidHater]

Don't forget music as well!  The day they burned old Dixie down, etc

[Fizzzzle]

PRAISE GENERAL MEADE, the unsung hero of Gettysburg

 

(For those who don't know, Grant did not control the army of the Potomac during Gettysburg, it was Meade)

 

Meade was a complete practical badass. He actually remained in control of the army of the Potomac throughout the rest of the war, Grant just superceded him and became his boss, but Meade never fucked up.

[CayceG]

What an incredible thread. I have no idea how I missed this 2 years ago lmao.

 

 

So back to "My Father's Gun" by Elton John, I became obsessed with a similar song from a different band: The Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down."

Robbie Robertson didn't intend any messaging towards the Lost Cause. He wrote the song because it fit Levon Helm's voice and accent. But in doing so, the song about a poor Confederate soldier with an overarching anti-war message became one of these cultural things that perpetuated the Lost Cause. People read into it what they wanted to hear. 

 

I have some sympathy for songwriters that accidentally fell into the Lost Cause myth while making incredible pieces of art.

On the flip side, fuck Lynyrd Skynyrd and their blatant glorification of the Confederacy. 

[TUFKAK]

I’ve always been a Californian I owe my experience to a state that at the free state slave debate wrote into our constitution that slavery is outlawed in our republic. During the Trump administration I told people abroad I was a Californian, not an American.

 

In summation

 

fuck the people who believe two Californians can’t be 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

I just watched this recently. 

 

I wonder if there was a sentiment of “we won, let them say what they want. What harm can it do?” 
 

Speaking of WWII, it was the US government and military that washed the Japanese Emperor and his family of not only the sins committed by the Japanese military in WWII, but also what the Japanese military did in China before WWII. Said to be because they needed the support of the royal family in Japan to smooth out US occupation and national reconstruction efforts. 
 

perhaps post civil war similar playbook. Don’t vilify the confederates, especially their leadership post war so that “the healing can happen”. But while Japan taught their people it was over aggressive Japanese military, warmongering. At least vilifying the attitudes and policies, just not the right leaders. But in former confederate states the villain, if there is one, basically is the Union states trying to strip away their state’s rights and over tax them. Making the confederates more like our revolutionary founding fathers. So now they all get to feel/claim like they’re still trying to save the Union from freedom stealing dictatorship, from the inside. If only Democrats and Liberals would just stay out of their way.

 

And I’m sure at a certain point it just because too politically inconvenient for politicians to oppose the Lost Cause myth. So here we are. Whether through unintentional ignorance or purposely rewriting history, the lost cause has been perpetuated so much that it has been romanticized and taught to the point that for far too many Americans it is all they know. And for one reason or another they are unwilling to accept they’ve been lied to all their lives.