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Does History Have Sides?

I studied history for a number of years, but I never could figure out something that Sherrod Brown, the left-wing Democratic Senator from Ohio, expresses with great if unearned confidence: History has ?sides,? for and against, and it always supports progressives against their opponents.

Speaking of the four Democratic ?moderates? who oppose parts of the Reid health plan on CNN, Brown said

he doesn't believe any of the four senators -- Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) -- will use Senate rules to block a vote on a final bill, despite their opposition to a public option.

?I don?t think they want to be on the wrong side of history,? Brown said. ?I don?t think they want to say, ?On a procedural vote, I killed the most important bill of my career.[?]?

But if one or more of the four did vote against the final bill, and thus killed it (Hope springs eternal), wouldn?t it be Brown who turned out to be on the wrong side of history (if not History)?

The trouble (or rather, one trouble) with true believers like Brown is that they don?t believe people make their own history but instead play pre-assigned roles in the pre-ordained unfolding of God?s (or Marx?s or whomever?s) vision, of which History is merely the record.

Full post as published by Discriminations on November 23, 2009 (boomark / email).