Gather. Your. Armies.

[Surlethe]

How great is that? A rhetorically compelling advertisement based entirely on lies and historical falsehoods. But the vision of American history implied by the ad is precisely what Tea Partiers believe.

[Ilya Muromets]

I'd make some comparison to Goebbels, but that wouldn't be fair. Goebbels at least had a flair for propaganda.

Seriously, though, that last line was almost parodic in how hilarious it came off. I bet this'll become meme-ified on the Net in short order.

[xerex]

whiskey rebellion anyone ?

[Lonestar]

whiskey rebellion anyone ?

What are you talking about? Our Founding Fathers never levied taxes or quashed civil insurrection!

[bobalot]

whiskey rebellion anyone ?

What are you talking about? Our Founding Fathers never levied taxes or quashed civil insurrection!

Not in the Revised Teapartytm version of history.

The thing I find funny is all that guys like this douche claim that running a small business is hard because the government is on their back. Sure, it's all the governments fault , it couldn't possibly be a myriad of other reasons.

[Mr Bean]

You are aware that this is oh four months old?



FYI the guy lost and bad in the Republican primary but the guy who made the add went on to join the winners campaign staff. So hopefully we have more greatness to come.

[Knife]

Same guy who made another one with Abe Lincoln equating taxing companies with slavery. Yeah, he lost bad in the primary.

[Stravo]

If you read the book "Lies my Teacher Told me" you'll discover that there is a mytholization of American History that can in many ways should be looked at as propaganda. I am struck when I meet European colleagues at how well versed they are on their own country's history - especially the bad, and how comfortable and matter of fact they are with that history. Blemishes and all. Americans on the other hand are taught to believe how truly awesome our country is and there are no blemishes. The Founding Fathers have been festishized to the point of creating some weird mini-pantheon of gods with Washington the All-Father of Freedom. Sad really. Sad for all of us because those people get to vote and are influenced by shitty sub-Goebbels like propaganda.

In many ways you can say Americans in general are taught to be easy to manipulate.

[Serafina]

If you read the book "Lies my Teacher Told me" you'll discover that there is a mytholization of American History that can in many ways should be looked at as propaganda. I am struck when I meet European colleagues at how well versed they are on their own country's history - especially the bad, and how comfortable and matter of fact they are with that history. Blemishes and all. Americans on the other hand are taught to believe how truly awesome our country is and there are no blemishes. The Founding Fathers have been festishized to the point of creating some weird mini-pantheon of gods with Washington the All-Father of Freedom. Sad really. Sad for all of us because those people get to vote and are influenced by shitty sub-Goebbels like propaganda.

In many ways you can say Americans in general are taught to be easy to manipulate.

IMO, that's because those failures in european history often led to bruality, dicatorships and the like - something our government and we want to avoid. Thus, we learn about the mistakes in order to avoid making them again.
I think the most obvious example is Nazi Germany - students in Germany learn about it and the Holocaust for almost a year, and often more than that. Yes, including all the atrocities. Especially those. And i think that if this is done right, it provides a beautifull insights into how and why democracy works, what has to be done to uphold it and how horrible it can actually get.
As far as i know, negative american history is generally brushed aside. Those were past mistake and they will never happen again. And America is awesome anyway. Or something like that. But if you do not learn about errors and bad things, how are you supposed to recognize and prevent them?

[Kanastrous]

In many ways you can say Americans in general are taught to be easy to manipulate.

If you can't fool all of the people all of the time, it's time to start breeding them for stupidity.

- Adam Weishaupt, Church & State -by- Dave Sim

[Simon_Jester]

To be fair, I'm not sure one can say all Americans are taught to treat their main historical figures as demigods. I don't remember being taught so; it may be a cultural or regional problem more than a "this is how Americans are" problem.

The mythic version of American history exists, and all too many Americans don't realize the there's anything beyond it, but it's hardly a universal phenomenon.

[Thanas]

To be fair, I'm not sure one can say all Americans are taught to treat their main historical figures as demigods. I don't remember being taught so; it may be a cultural or regional problem more than a "this is how Americans are" problem.

The mythic version of American history exists, and all too many Americans don't realize the there's anything beyond it, but it's hardly a universal phenomenon.

I have had the "pleasure" of High School education. Of cause it was a mythologization and treating the Founding Fathers as Demigods. Especially with test questions like

The British lost the War of Independence due to:
a) The hardiness of the American soldier
b) Bad generalship
c) Mercenaries that could not compete with freedom-seeking minutemen
d) All of the above

I let yourself figure out what is wrong with that.

[Lonestar]

I have had the "pleasure" of High School education. Of cause it was a mythologization and treating the Founding Fathers as Demigods. Especially with test questions like

The British lost the War of Independence due to:
a) The hardiness of the American soldier
b) Bad generalship
c) Mercenaries that could not compete with freedom-seeking minutemen
d) All of the above

I let yourself figure out what is wrong with that.

Well that's what you get for going to a Public High School in Louisiana. I distinctly recall mine saying "because the French bankrolled the Rebels and the British were fighting multiple larger operations elsewhere".

[General Soontir Fel]

To be fair, I'm not sure one can say all Americans are taught to treat their main historical figures as demigods. I don't remember being taught so; it may be a cultural or regional problem more than a "this is how Americans are" problem.

The mythic version of American history exists, and all too many Americans don't realize the there's anything beyond it, but it's hardly a universal phenomenon.

I have had the "pleasure" of High School education. Of cause it was a mythologization and treating the Founding Fathers as Demigods. Especially with test questions like

The British lost the War of Independence due to:
a) The hardiness of the American soldier
b) Bad generalship
c) Mercenaries that could not compete with freedom-seeking minutemen
d) All of the above

I let yourself figure out what is wrong with that.

e)None of the above. France got involved and played the same role the U.S. did with Afghanistan and the Soviet Union.

[Kanastrous]

Well...there were times and places that American soldiers showed pretty remarkable tenacity...and British generals did make some errors...

...but the phrasing leaves a great deal to be desired. And the question kind of seems to assume that Britain had zero obligations or demands upon their resources, any place outside North America...

[Thanas]

Yes. We had the whole thing devoid of any context (same with the war in 1812) aside from: The french and the brits do not get along.

It was extremely america-centric.

[Kanastrous]

Ugh. Yeah. The war that gave us us our deplorable national anthem. Yuck.

We had some help from Germans like Von Steuben in the RevWar, too. Even if technically they weren't Germany yet*.


*at the time the word 'Prussian' probably struck more fear in people's hearts, anyway...

[TC27]

As a Brit its always useful to bone up on a bit of AWI history to try and spin your way out of a 'haahaha we beat your limey ass' comment.

Regarding this video...to me it verges on sedition and incitement to violence...obviously this twerp wouldnt be worth bothering with but its pretty scary none the less.

[Simon_Jester]

I have had the "pleasure" of High School education. Of cause it was a mythologization and treating the Founding Fathers as Demigods. Especially with test questions like

The British lost the War of Independence due to:
a) The hardiness of the American soldier
b) Bad generalship
c) Mercenaries that could not compete with freedom-seeking minutemen
d) All of the above

I let yourself figure out what is wrong with that.

Thanas, your experience of American high school education might have been a representative sample. I won't deny that because I'm in no position to prove otherwise. But please bear in mind that American education is highly nonuniform. I got a much more nuanced picture of the Revolution, for example, including reference to the large Tory population, that the Founders disagreed wildly on key issues like the importance of formally encoding civil liberties into the Constitution, and so on. The Founders were presented as great men, but not as saints or demigods.

I suspect that if someone had suggested to Mr. Carrington that a question like the above wind up on the exams, he'd have been laughed out of the classroom.

Perhaps I was simply lucky, of course. Or perhaps (at least as likely) I'm misremembering other material I learned from different sources during the same period as being part of my high school curriculum. But even so, the fact that your high school American history class was shitty doesn't mean everyone else's was.

As a Brit its always useful to bone up on a bit of AWI history to try and spin your way out of a 'haahaha we beat your limey ass' comment.

The real trick is to remind the joker how many times the American militia ran away. It was relatively rare for the colonials to beat a regular force in stand-up battle, and usually that involved European-trained troops fighting them on their own terms, not the Heroic Rag Tag Militia of the mythical version.

[Ford Prefect]

When he said 'all powerful separate judiciary' (or whatever), I wondered if he would totally spazz out if you walked up to him, put your lips to his ears and whispered 'Marbury v Madison'.

[Big Orange]

Well it certainly helped that Bourbon France had the second biggest navy in the world who were willing to help the Colonists, deploying 24 ships of the line at Virginia Capes opposite the Royal Navy's 17 ships of the line. And let's not forget Spain.

[Thanas]

Ugh. Yeah. The war that gave us us our deplorable national anthem. Yuck.

We had some help from Germans like Von Steuben in the RevWar, too. Even if technically they weren't Germany yet*.


*at the time the word 'Prussian' probably struck more fear in people's hearts, anyway...

Well, the Prussian drill sure did its work at Valley Forge....

And yeah, Steuben emphasized his Prussian heritage a lot.

[CarsonPalmer]

Ugh. Yeah. The war that gave us us our deplorable national anthem. Yuck.

We had some help from Germans like Von Steuben in the RevWar, too. Even if technically they weren't Germany yet*.


*at the time the word 'Prussian' probably struck more fear in people's hearts, anyway...

Living in New Jersey, we were fortunate enough to get Von Steuben and Pulaski and even Kosciuzko, but I think that had more to do with lots of Polish and German kids in the area who had a great deal of pride involved than anything else.

[Kamakazie Sith]

To be fair, I'm not sure one can say all Americans are taught to treat their main historical figures as demigods. I don't remember being taught so; it may be a cultural or regional problem more than a "this is how Americans are" problem.

The mythic version of American history exists, and all too many Americans don't realize the there's anything beyond it, but it's hardly a universal phenomenon.

You're absolutely correct. I attended public school in Ogden, Utah and some of the history we were taught included the masscare at My Lai (and other vietnam horrors), the genocide against the native americans, the heavy involvment of the French in our revolution, the United States favoritism towards Israel.

It is important to recognize that americans aren't the only people that stereotype the practices of an entire country. (wink wink)

[Alyrium Denryle]

To be fair, I'm not sure one can say all Americans are taught to treat their main historical figures as demigods. I don't remember being taught so; it may be a cultural or regional problem more than a "this is how Americans are" problem.

The mythic version of American history exists, and all too many Americans don't realize the there's anything beyond it, but it's hardly a universal phenomenon.

You're absolutely correct. I attended public school in Ogden, Utah and some of the history we were taught included the masscare at My Lai (and other vietnam horrors), the genocide against the native americans, the heavy involvment of the French in our revolution, the United States favoritism towards Israel.

It is important to recognize that americans aren't the only people that stereotype the practices of an entire country. (wink wink)

I cannot say that my experience in the Mormon Theocracy that is close to Deseret Utah is as encouraging. Basically guilty of all the bullshit mentioned so far.