If you control the story of your country's history, you have a much better chance to mold its future.
One of the things Ayn Rand warned us about is what she called "the amputation of history". She was talking about how power structures manipulate us through propaganda - and one of the main points they rely on is that most of us don't remember our history lessons from school. Of course, the Right Radicals have been telling us for 30 years that all the schools suck; that they never taught us anything straight. So we're open to the suggestion that what we learned wasn't the true story, and we're also open to accept a substitute version that The Party is more than happy to supply.
Think about some of the ridiculous things we've heard from Haley Barbour and Michelle Bachman lately. Barbour made claims that race hatred in Mississippi wasn't really all that bad; and Bachman spun a whopper about how the founding fathers worked so hard to end slavery.
Now think about what they're telling us about the Boston Tea Party - how it was a revolt against taxes. It wasn't anything of the sort. It was actually a rebellion against the tyranny of a government that was being used by a mega-corporation to impose croney capitalism on people who simply wanted a chance to compete on a level field.
BTW: in case you're some kind of bone-head Libertarian who insists that this is just an example of 'counter-propaganda' and you can't trust anything you hear; go blow a rock. There are actually ways of discovering the truth about things, and there's this little matter of critical thinking that requires you to accept facts when they present themselves in some reasonable way.
I love this kinda shit (assuming I haven't been April-Fooled of course).
If my high school history serves, the activists directly involved with the Tea Party disguised themselves as 'rampant savage Indians'. Not sure what that has to do with the act, or your point, but it's refreshing to know the strategy of passing the buck at someone else's' expense has become a highly refined non-partisan fail safe.
ReplyDeleteYou're right - their need to hide their identities has nothing at all to do with the point.
ReplyDeleteThe point is for me to learn when somebody has something legitimate to teach me. And to call bullshit when a politician decides to rewrite the history of an important event just because it suits his immediate purpose.