Weekend Watch

Well my second ever weekend watch is two days late. Doing well.

Anyway here is part two of the Power of Nightmares:

The study of myth and legend to be promoted in British schools.

The Tories have decided to follow the American propaganda method of only teaching national history in schools. In a way I shouldn't care after all everything in school is a lie to children anyway and anything of worth is taught at degree level or learnt by people off their own back, school gives you the foundations to learn more and nothing else really. But damnit I like history and while yes the overwhelming focus on WW2 is perhaps a problem but it is a subject separated to some extent from national identity and children can be encouraged to explore the range of potential reasons for the start of the war in the face of the perception it was all Hitler's fault. But with British history, especially for children up to the age of 13 parents will likely feel compelled to complain and attack teachers that send any other message than Britain was good.

This of course leaves aside problems such as inability to empathise with other cultures and the insularity only knowing your own history causes but that is very likely the aim of the Tories in doing this. Now lets look at a few quotes:

He attacked the current approach to history teaching, which he said denied children the chance to learn "our island story" in favour of a mix of topics at primary level and a brief study of Henry VIII and Hitler at secondary.

Why on earth would one want children to learn about anywhere other than a small island, who gives a shit about the vast majority of the earth and its' population?

Gove said: "Our literature is the best in the world – it is every child's birthright, and we should be proud to teach it in every school."

Following on from the previous quote one really gets a clear view of the level of nationalism going into this decision, it is a clear step backwards in understanding the rest of the world. But this is a right wing government so not really a surprise. Also if anyone can tell me how one can define how one culture's literature is better than another's please do let me know, I am keen to learn.

It is a source of dismay to Conservatives that Winston Churchill is currently left off the history curriculum for 11 to 13-year-olds, while two anti-slavery campaigners, William Wilberforce and Olaudah Equiano, are the only historical figures mentioned by name.

Not that freeing the slaves was a bad thing or anything, just really people seem to focus on it a bit too much. I mean yes human beings were stripped of all their rights, treated as property and generally abused in every manner possible but that isn't going to indoctrinate children into liking the Tories now is it?

I am very keen to know what children will get to learn about Winston Churchill, will it be his support for gassing Kurds (that which nasty old Saddam was hung for)? His desire to turn the BBC into a state propaganda organ during the General Strike? Or perhaps his (at best) total indifference to the deaths of four million Indian colonial subjects due to an avoidable famine during WW2?

LOL

Gove also said he wanted GCSE maths and science exams to be made tougher, adding: "We urgently need to ensure our children study rigorous disciplines instead of pseudo-subjects.

"In Massachusetts, 16-year-olds are asked in their science exams, to identify the shape of a carbon tetrabromide molecule as predicted by the valence-shell repulsion theory.

"In England, 16-year-olds are asked in their science exams whether we sweat through our lungs or our skin."

In both Britain and Massachusetts there aren't different levels of science exams nor are there questions weighted with different marks to acknowledge some questions are easier than others. This is a scientific fact.

Oh and the history expert who is advising on all this just happens to be a TV historian who did a rather flattering history series about Britain's history. The best person for the job was obviously chosen.

The Sound of Music is racist.

I knew I was right to dislike it.

To be more serious I would argue that the subtext of agrarian fascism winning out is not the specific focus of this film but rather a fundamental flaw with Western conceptions of purity and nobility (in the sense of a noble spirit, not the elite class). We know that nearly all the time urban areas are more progressive and more tolerant than the countryside and yet we consistently have the myth foisted upon us that the countryside is where true decency resides. Whether this is due to the simple misunderstanding that because rural locations are prettier and pleasanter to reside in the inhabitants will follow suit or it is a more deliberately fostered myth by right wing elites wanting to justify their base and rural right wingers mythologising themselves. Regardless Americans will be most familiar with this concept in the contemporary praising of "small town values" by the GOP.

To go further into the link between idealised rurality and fascism I recommend Jonathan Meades' documentary about Nazi architecture:


part 2
part 3
part 4

How the US govt is attempting to hide real controversy.

The Propaganda model requires that if dissenting or controversial opinion is put forward in the media then good tame journalists will throw up "flak" contravening opinions presented as fact, insinuations about the dissenter's motivations and related propaganda about the subject showing that even if the disputed suggestion is true in general what the elite want us to think is true.

However the leak of ninety odd thousand government documents causes two major problems for the propaganda model. Firstly Wikileaks is too secretive and not well known enough to really pin specific blame on, its' leaks have covered a wide range of subjects. Nonetheless attempts are being made to suggest they some kind of malignant, ill defined ideology, as seen in the article I posted yesterday David Finkel, a good little journalist who despite knowing about the events of the helicopter gunship attacking civilians video for well over a year before it was released didn't make a fuss about, suggests that Wikileaks reason for leaking is suspect because "They provided artificial agenda driven context." Afterall, people merrily murdering civilians and laughing about it isn't a big deal unless you put some evil context on it.

Secondly though given the papers are government documents not meant to be released it is very difficult for the press to assert they're suspect or ideologically motivated, the sheer volume as well as the source undermines that. Unless the US military and government is deliberately lying to itself about Afghanistan (something of a controversy in itself) most of the tools of flak simply don't work.

However flak is mainly a tool of second resort, to suppress issues that have gotten past the first line of defence, the media defining what the elite talked about as the entire scope of news. But this is not the media's news, it is the governments so the US government is trying very hard to make out that while EVIL HILTER WIKILEAKS has endangered every brave Troop and destroyed Afghanistan with its' carelessness the actual information contained in those 90k documents is pretty boring and uninteresting. For instance Obama had this to say.

And yet mean old members of the media who are evil enough to point out the leaked documents do point out a range of things previously unknown or at least not acknowledged. Al Jazeera's report summarises most of the major problems but for specifics the leak revealed: a different death squad operation separate from JSOC's death squads called Task Force 373, at least 144 civilian deaths were known about but not reported by the US Military, the US government believes that the ISI (Pakistani intelligence service) is aiding the Taliban oh and we've actually known where Bin Laden was much more recently than claimed but capturing him might end the forever war and the contractor bonanza so it was kept quiet.

But yeah members of the public just trust the President and don't look too closely at what the leak actually contained, theres far more important things to do, like watching The View!

Matt Taibbi has some harsh words for an "insider Journalist"

Viewer friendly pretty face Lara Logan is deeply annoyed that Michael Hasting's article about Death Squad Commander McChrystal did not show him to be the ubermensch military god who never fails that a good patriotic journalist should. Matt Taibbi takes her to task about this: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/matt-taibbi/blogs/TaibbiData_May2010/122137/83512