The real problem is not what will happen with Obamacare, or contempt for 47 percent of Americans, or an evil scheme to deprive embassies of security, or policies designed to make the rich richer at the expense of everyone else, or who is likely to make more of a mess out of the economy.
The real problem is that America's leaders will be selected by voters who have little or no understanding of how this nation was created and how it came to be what it is, especially if they finished high school in recent years, when the study of social studies in general and American history in particular has been sabotaged. Moreover, too much of what Americans know, or think they know, is incorrect.
George Washington did not cross the Delaware River from Bucks County while wearing a formal powdered white wig and posing like a GQ model, accompanied by about a dozen soldiers, with the rays of a rising sun gloriously appearing to the south, and he did not do it in a rowboat, displaying an American flag actually established six months later.
He did it on a large barge filled with 50 or more other soldiers, using torches or lanterns in the dark to find a way across.
The white powered wig version of the crossing, on Christmas night in 1776, was painted in Germany in 1851 by Emanuel Leutze, and was a sensation when it was brought to America, with 50,000 people paying to see it in New York.
As reported in The Morning Call last weekend and in the Go Guide on Thursday, a new painting, by Long Island artist Mort Kunstler, went on display for Saturday and today at the Lehigh Valley Heritage Museum in Allentown. It is based on historical accounts of the event, which resulted in Washington's capture of Trenton, a key factor in the American Revolution.
The new artwork, first shown in New York last December, is no less inspiring, but is far more darkly realistic. Washington is not pictured as a mythical god with one foot up on a gunwale; he is somberly leaning against the wheel of a cannon carriage.
"This painting captures the danger, the resolve, the fortitude and the importance of what they did," said museum director Joe Garrera. "If you look at [Washington's] face there, you can see that this is a guy who's contemplating the possible end of his life [at a time when] the war was going poorly."
The Kunstler painting kicked off the museum's Revolutionary War Exhibit, which will continue through June 2.
"With history, you've got to infuse some sense of emotion … to make it relevant," Garrera said, and then we talked a bit about the devaluation of history in recent years.
"The real heroes are not rock stars, sports stars," Garrera observed. "That's what we admire today. We chase after the wrong thing — celebrities." He noted that Washington was wealthy and did not have to work, but risked his life and sacrificed much of his wealth to help create the nation.
"Can you imagine getting people to do something like that?" he asked. "How can you expect someone to work for their country, to sacrifice … if they don't know what they're sacrificing for? Only when you begin to understand people like Washington, the Founding Fathers, can you understand your role in democracy."
Garrera and I clashed on some things (I favor standardized testing), but we agreed that not only is the teaching of history being neglected, some of what's taught is false.
For example, I did not know until 2006, when I visited Yorktown, that the battle that ended the American Revolution included a heroic final charge by a regiment from Rhode Island. That regiment was predominantly black, a fact seldom mentioned in schools and never portrayed in movies.
I never knew the true story of the Alamo until I visited San Antonio in 2003. That battle was over an attempt by slave-holding Americans, including Davy Crockett, to introduce slavery into Mexico, where it was illegal, by force. It was not a fight for freedom as American students are taught.
Want a real eye-opener? Research what George Armstrong Custer did at Gettysburg, not at Little Bighorn.
On school visits. I've asked students about Paul Revere. They usually knew about the cry, "The British are coming!" So I'll ask, "The British were coming to do what?" Blank stares. Students never seem to be told they were coming to impose gun control, as decreed by a deranged tyrant, George III.
Today, some facets of the story of America's history are not politically correct, so the education establishment simply ignores them or even lies about them.
Speaking of mistakes and the dissemination of false historical information, Elmer Solosky of Bath called Friday to point out exactly such a problem. "The picture you have with your column is not William Penn … and [the column] says William Penn was the founder of Allentown," he said, noting that the picture is of William Allen, the real founder of Allentown.
I'm not sure if it was stupidity or carelessness, or both, but the error is mine alone. When I went looking for pictures of Penn, the Allen picture somehow wound up in my pile, and it went in the paper along with the passage about the founder of Allentown. I thanked Solosky profusely and went looking for my dunce cap.
paul.carpenter@mcall.com 610-820-6176
Paul Carpenter's commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
