Political correctness is an interesting pejorative, but I don't think it
applies to this discussion.  It is probably more "PC" to exhibit all
evidence of our military prowess, than to downplay a national policy of
being prepared.

Item:
The Army is the only branch of the US Armed Forces that currently has no
national museum.  It is searching for a location, or so I see in the news.
Evidently the budget dollars have already been put up by the taxpayers to
build it.

Item:
Two schoolboys kill a teacher and wound classmates in Jonesboro, Ark.  The
media publish the photo of one of them, taken before he was 5 yrs. old,
pink-cheeked and smiling for the camera and fully uniformed and armed -- and
not just for hunting wild game.  This lad was groomed for war before he
could understand the meaning of peace.  He was the male equivalent of Jon
Benet, the 6-yr-old beauty queen who lost her life even before she could
understand what beauty is.

Item:
Huge sums are invested to keep government from banning the sale of military
weapons to the public, all in the name of the "right to bear arms."   One
doesn't need an Uzi to kill a deer or for self-protection.

One hopes the proposed National Army Museum will be politically incorrect,
i.e. that it will use technology and objects to shock, rather than thrill,
its visitors...that it will show what happened, and also how after many
wars, our culture devotes more to the apparatus of war than it does to
caring for the needs of humanity.


-----Original Message-----
From: Dave <[log in to unmask]>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.museum-l
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wednesday, May 06, 1998 11:02 PM
Subject: Military Uniform Symposium and political correctness


>Since no one seems to want to rain on this parade of political
>correctness on the Military Uniform Symposium, I guess it is my turn
>(once again). The focus on military musuems is NOT the glorification of
>war, but the preservation of a part of history. I know that scholarship
>may be sorely lacking in the museum community, but logic would seem to
>relative enough to see the same connection of purpose of one museum to
>another museum.
>
>As with any history museum, it is something that HAS HAPPENED and is a
>record of that; and a set of lessons from which we are supposed to
>learn--and not repeat. If we become scantimonious, and political correct
>(read censor) about such things, we are doomed to repeat them over and
>over.
>
>IF, on the other hand, we are content to apply political correctness,
>then I have an agenda of museums that I think should be closed and the
>information presented should be suppressed.
>
>Hopefully, my less than blunt point is made. (BTW, I am not singling out
>Ross Weeks or Herr Rebernik in particular, but the whole pervasive
>permissiveness that allows political correctness to set reactionary
>agendas.) (I would also guess that the silence accorded this incident,
>is not so much a matter of unconcern, but of patient groans about 'oh,
>no yet another'....)
>
>Dave Wells
>Quinault National Museum Project
>821 Kaiser RD NW 6A
>Olympia WA 98502-2621 USA
>
>360-866-4431
>[log in to unmask]
>
>Ross Weeks wrote:
>>
>> Not to repeat Mr. Rebernik's recitation, but all through my life I have
>> wondered why military museums glorify war by not calling attention to the
>> atrocity of all of the paraphernalia involved.  Resplendent uniforms are
>> certainly works of art, and those who wore them deserve to be proud.  But
if
>> we ignore the "why" of it all, then we're simply celebrating war.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------