On history

While I'm familiar with the Filipino-American war, I didn't know about David Fagen's involvement in it, and wouldn't have if not for that specific research (thanks for the information). Amazing what a couple of World Wars can do to change priorities in the years since. If anything, current priorities are what's deserving of shade, rather than the "global lens" that's spoken of in the social media post that the article contains.

Knowing a people's willingness to counter a current aggressor and keeping historical information on a past aggressor are two different things. Just like removing Confederate portraits (what party were they from again?) and deleting tweets (cherry-picked video and all) won't change what did happen, but discussions on reassigning duties and reexamining forms of restraint and deterrence might change what will happen.

There's a saying about forgetting one's past and being doomed to repeat it. Turning a bad memory into an educational one is what breaks that loop. This modern-day version of texts on a bonfire, by contrast, is a step towards forgetting.