This piece is written by Dave. It was an email from him regarding the importance of the archive site we are building of Bob’s work. I asked his permission to share this on BUGS, as it is great insight. Thanks, Dave! (More on the new archive site soon.)

I will tell you why I think Robert Whitaker’s writings are important.

First, some digression:

I am unique in that I come from a family were everybody marries late. I am no exception. For example, I am 67 years old, I married for the first time in my mid-fifties, and I now have a five year old child.

My whole family has been like that for generations. My paternal grandfather was born in 1883 and I knew him well into my teens. He died in the late 1960s in a world he could not recognize. My maternal grandfather, born in 1890, grew up in Virginia among aging Confederate Civil War veterans who he came to know well.

My grandfather told me when I was a child: “You cannot understand American history if you do not understand that the wrong side won the Civil War.”

You see, he had the actual face-to-face first person testimony of the Confederate veterans who fought the Civil War, so he knew what the Civil War was really about. It was an assault of European Imperialism on the American people. The Confederate veterans of the Civil War clearly understood it as such. The Union veterans, in contrast, were victims of
the propaganda of European Imperialism (sound familiar?).

This brings us to the unique importance of Robert Whitaker. Robert Whitaker understood that the memory that constitutes real history only lasts for three generations, and this is because the influence of face-to-face first person testimony only lasts three generations. Death erases accurate memory beyond three generations because you can only interface with three generations (normally) within one lifetime and therefore you only get three generations of first person testimony told face-to-face.

It is death that gives propaganda its opportunity. You see, the Civil War was real to my grandfather, even though he wasn’t born until 1890, because he had access to the face-to-face first person testimony of those that actually fought it.

I am in a similar position regarding WWI and WWII. Even though I was not born until the 1950’s because my grandfather, who I knew well, was in WWI and because my father, who I knew well, was in WWII, those wars are real to me. This is the influence of face-to-face first person testimony. Because of this, I know things that students of written histories (propaganda histories) cannot know.

For example, my father was in the front line British and American assault forces that stopped the German and Dutch advance on Antwerp on News Years Day in 1945 (the last high causality WWI style battle that British and Americans were ever in). They then carried out the recapture of the Ardennes, penetrated the Siegfried Line, took the Rhineland, and ended up in warehouses on the Elbe River in May of 1945 awaiting the conclusion of the Battle of Berlin.

If you said to my father, “The British and American allies won the War in Europe,” my father would have rolled his eyes. Those British and American soldiers that actually carried out the conclusion of World War II in Belgium and West Germany knew that the actual outcome was a defeat, not a victory. It is pure propaganda that the British and American
allies “won the War in Europe.” The soldiers that actually fought that war knew it was not true. Leaving half of Germany and all of Central
Europe in the hands of the Communists was not a victory, it was a defeat, and that is how THOSE SOLDIERS perceived it.

You will hardly ever hear that told in any written history (propaganda history) of WWII.

Robert Whitaker clearly understood the difference between real history and myth. He was unique in this. He understood the role of face-to-face first person testimony and how and why real history dies within a three generation time frame. He understood clearly HOW propaganda finds its opportunity.

And this brings us to Robert Whitaker’s other great insight, and that is the role of slogans in politics. I never understood big league politics until I began to study Robert Whitaker. I never understood that big league politics is really about slogans and that there is nothing more important than finding effective and durable slogans. Effective slogans put paid to fake history. Robert Whitaker taught me that if you want to defeat fake history, (fake history being an artifact of the role of death in human life), you must find effective slogans.

That insight is pure genius. Robert Whitaker was a genius, a practical genius, and that is WHY it is important to preserve Robert Whitaker’s writings.

Dave