Source: Common Dreams
by James Zogby
“Our understanding of an historical event’s meaning is a function of two factors. The first is what we choose to identify as the starting point leading up to the event. The second is the lens through which we view it. This should be obvious, but unfortunately it is not, and the failure to acknowledge or understand it has consequences in everything from public policy to personal relationships. This truth can be ignored due to thoughtlessness, blindness to one’s biases, or just plain ignorance. On some occasions there can be malign intent, including efforts to deliberately hide what one knows to be an event’s antecedents for political or personal reasons. Before examining the issue that prompted this column, I want to share an example. The comedian Dick Gregory once noted that despite what we were taught in school, ‘Columbus didn’t discover America, because it wasn’t lost.'” (08/05/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/history-didn-t-start-october-7