August 20, 2010

• The scariest video I ever saw

  digby documented this video that played on Fox News:
  
  Now I feel sick just posting that cuz giving it even one additional audience member it shouldn’t have would be a crime against human decency.  However, watching this lead me to a burning sense of curiosity, so I’ve got to post this and ask you my readers this burning question I have.

  Is this your history?

  I especially ask of those of you who grew up in the South or who grew up in heavily conservative towns or conservative areas. I’m not talking about various small factual details, most of which are undoubtedly true, if badly misinterpreted. I’m talking about the overall world view being expressed here. The value judgments being placed on the ways in which the history transpired. How much of this tracks with what you learned about the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Gilded Age? Was it similar?  Was Lincoln a dangerous tyrant in your history books? Was Cleveland a hero? Did blacks suffer because they were freed from slavery? Was laissez faire capitalism what brought about the advancement of human society?

  Because this shares no resemblance whatsoever to the history I learned from my family and during my schooling. Not in grade school, not in high school, and not in College. I grew up and went to school in Delaware. While I wasn’t a history major in college I did take a few history classes one of which dealt with US history. Since then I’ve always remained a healthy curiosity for history and have read many books and online resources related to it. And I’ve watched my fair share of the history channel. I’m certainly by no means anywhere near an expert, but I’d like to think I have a bit better of a grasp than say Glenn Beck whom I know of at least one well respected history scholar and professor considers “doesn’t know anything” about American history.

  But I’ve never before encountered a history quite like this one.

  So if this is what you have always learned in school then we’re going to have to hash this out somehow. One or the other of us has a very very false notion of the history of the United States. And I’m going to have to try my best to explain to you, in excruciating detail, why I am confident that the person who was badly deceived is you.

  But if you didn’t learn this in school then Good. I’ll trust that you and I both can agree that while the truth might not be exactly what we learned in school, it certainly isn’t this. I won’t have to go into detail explaining to you the obvious internal contradictions inherent in this presentation and the things that make me think it is a wholly opportunistic attempt to twist history to serve the whims of a few billionaires. I won’t have to describe all the details of misery and suffering conveniently left out of this account as if they don’t matter. I won’t have to dig out the accounts of real scholars of history and quote their analysis of primary sources that invalidate this total and utter BS.

  Instead, I’ll just hope that this kind of twisted history story dies away and nobody sane or of any level of knowledge and intellect ever comes to believe it.

  But if there really are these two vastly different conflicting histories already well known and believed by large swaths of the population, then I think I’ve finally come to a true understanding of why this world is so fucked up.  If you come from that tradition that had engrained in you this false history and you never were exposed to an alternative tale, well then I don’t see how it would ever be likely for you and I to come to common ground on anything. You’re simply basing your understanding of the universe in totally different terms than I ever will. 

  Because if you believe in THIS history then you manifestly believe that ending the misery and suffering of millions people with my skin color who were living without rights as slaves is far less important than the right of States never to have a central government impose its will upon them.

  That’s a contradiction I can’t accept. If you believe that at the core of your being, then I don’t even know how to begin to communicate with you.

  And that’s why I find this video so terrifying. Because even if nobody currently believes this claptrap, there is obviously an effort underway to ensure that as many people as possible start to grow up believing this. Fox News has a huge reach. As do right wing radios. Those parents and grandparents teach their children. Those children attend schools like Glenn Beck University and are told not to trust anything they learn from anywhere else.  And soon…. we end up with a permanently divided society that can find no common ground on any point. Defeating that ingrained ignorance with the undeniable truth will be a slow and painstaking process that will take decades. That will leave us in a sad state indeed.

  Propaganda is a very scary thing.

  • 6:12 pm
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