An Analysis Of James Loewen's 'Lies My Teacher Told Me'

Accidental Lies

James Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything your American Text Book Got Wrong, wrote about the grim nature of the American educational system. Loewen spent a couple of years gathering intimate details about twelve American history textbooks. In his search, he found convoluted truths of what it means to be a patriot, and worst of all, the misrepresentation of the truth in the educational system. We must think about why a government would want to mislead its people, like in the case of the 1954 Iranian Coup orchestrated by the CIA. Perhaps it is comfort in knowing that all of the conflicts we’ve been involved in are reasonably sound, to remove our abilities to think critically, or to rightfully be proud of a bloody

Loewen’s piece touches on the colonization of United States in its infanthood. For instance, Loewen discusses that “Spanish settlers were our first pilgrims” (391). Furthermore, most Americans are not aware that about one-third of the United States was initially Spanish controlled and subsequently left Spanish influence on the language and the people that inhabited the southern region (391). It is rather odd that there is still a strong anti-Spanish language sentiment in the south, the original stomping grounds of the first (Spanish) pilgrims. Let’s explore why. In 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA allowed for Canada, the United States, and Mexico to trade freely. This agreement was meant to equalize the wage gap between the countries and create jobs. However, according to Common Dreams, “heavily subsidized U.S. corn flooded the Mexican market” costing the jobs of millions of farmers (Kolhatkar). The devastation in Mexico’s economy caused an influx of immigration to the United

The negative attitude that Americans have of those countries is not accidental. Recently, the CIA has announced their involvement in Operation Ajax, an incident that resulted in the metaphorical isolation of Iran in 1954. The details are always important. Essentially Iran, under the order of their then Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, was attempting to nationalize an oil industry that the British help build after their “involvement” in Iranian politics after WWI. Mosaddegh had intended to audit the British petroleum company that had access to Iran’s petroleum reserves, and on cue, Britain and the United States came together to boycott Iranian oil. To garner support from their citizens, the United States declared Iran a communist country. Meanwhile, the relatively new CIA moved General Zahedi, a former WWII war criminal, into the newly available Prime Minister position (Ghosh). America gets access to the oil reserves, and Americans are left with a foul taste in their mouth about what Iran is