Politics in Media - The Good, the Bad, and the Preachy

They don't care - the people making that argument either don't grasp the difference between a form of government and a form of state or they're arguing in bad faith to stifle the discourge regarding the US' democratic deficits.

In other words: Political illiterates, anti-democratic arseholes or both.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Dec 2nd 2019 at 7:14:58 PM

and are so contrasting.

Eductation-wise, California seems to be better than the general country. However, I don't have first-hand exposure to California schools, so probably don't take my word for it.

Lucky. I've lived in red states my whole childhood, or at least as far back as I remember.

Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Dec 2nd 2019 at 3:04:45 PM

California's one of the bluest of blue states, so it makes sense that their education system is ahead of the curve.

I grew up in the public education system of a purple state. We had to swear the Pledge of Allegiance, and we learned our history the American way! Specifically, were taught that

• America single-handedly defeated the Nazis in WWII
• Absolutely nothing about WWI
• The Revolution was about sticking it to unreasonable British tyranny!
• The Native Americans and settlers made peace almost instantly and then...mumble mumble....

Etc. etc.

EDIT: I remember I had an English teacher in high school who was a pretty cool dude and then one day he was just gone. The gym teacher was brought in to replace him. No one had any idea why he was fired, but word around the grapevine was that it was because of his professed communist leanings.

I've never known how much stock to give that, though. It was rumor mill stuff, after all. But it was also the year after 9/11, when the U.S. was still in rabid "PATRIOTISM F*CK YEAH!!!" mode.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 2nd 2019 at 1:08:25 PM

I don't remember much of what was specifically taught in my history classes but I do remember at least a few of them talking about things like the trail of tears and other such atrocities. The history class in the community college I'm currently going to also talks at length about the various skeletons in our county's closet.

Really? Not even a passing "ok, so there was a big war in Europe that was kind of a big deal, but we weren't in it much, so let's just skip to the sequel"? That's pretty terrible honestly, since you kind of need at least a passing familiarity with WW 1 in order to understand why WW 2 happened.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Dec 2nd 2019 at 4:56:06 PM

I'm imagining them skipping straight to the League of Nations and being really confused about the treaties and then mentioning they ended up not joining for..reasons

I grew up in Oregon, and I'm not sure if my education was typical for the US, but I can say a few things:

-We were taught that Columbus discovered the world was round in 1st grade, though by 4th grade we were told the truth.

-I imagine they're overstating when they said 'literally nothing'. Very little was taught in elementary school, other than that it was a big war in Europe and it led to Germany getting the shaft and then becoming Nazi Germany. In middle and high school we were taught more.

-The American Revolution is talked about, but why exactly the British taxes and such were so hated was either glossed over, or I just can't recall it. They did go into the bill of rights and talk about what each one was meant specifically to address, for example.

-Slavery is not especially glossed over, though they tend to avoid calling the Confederacy evil. This one's a bit of a mixed bag overall. There's a lot of narratives one can spin from it in service to many agendas. Typically, I would tend to approach the civil war as a sort of patriotic crusade against the evils slavery, or at least that it was in hindsight.

-Native Americans are talked about to various degrees. When they are brought up, they're almost always painted as victims of white oppression, though they tend to fail to talk much about the natives themselves and also generally fail to mention how modern Native Americans are still in a tight spot.

-I actually would argue one should talk about times the Native Americans and the Settlers had peace and got along, for a couple reasons. The big one is that people tend to view such conflicts as inevitable, and therefore not evil, merely tragic. If you talk about times they got along, you break that illusion down.

How School was taught in Kentucky in the 80s

Ooooh boy.

• The Founders were the greatest geniuses who ever lived and created a monument to democracy and freedom that has never been matched and is still relevant today.
• The British were a cruel oppressive and tyrannical regime that being defeated saved the world. Only plucky heroic freedom fighters defeated their horribly stupid brightly red columns.
• The French utterly boned their own revolution and it became one of the most evil things ever.
• The Antebellum South was a peaceful beautiful place where Southern hospitality and gentleness ruled.
• Slavery wasn't especially bad since it was done by gentlemen like Washington and Jefferson.
• You didn't abuse slaves because they were valuable. Each worth like an expensive car.
• The South revolved because of their love of independence. The primary conflict was rulership by them foremost with federal government being weak. Slavery was one of the things that was conflicted over.
• The North committed numerous war crimes against the South and behaved in a savage evil manner.
• Slavery was a poor economic system but would eventually have been replaced voluntarily.
• Native Americans were horribly oppressed by the US government, countless atrocities committed against them, and their land was stolen. Yes, I was surprised by this as well.
• The Treaty of Versailles was horribly oppressive and resulted in Germany getting taken over by the Nazis.
• America allied with the Soviets against the Nazis. Which was a good and an evil power against a worst one.
• Stalin was every bit as bad as Hitler and the second worst dictator who ever lived.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Dec 2nd 2019 at 2:26:23 AM

that last one is actually a decent point, as Stalin was every bit the monster hitler was, just saner.

No, it's not.

Stalin did not genocide Eastern Europe, nor did he turn them into a slave caste.

He was totalitarian and murderous but to say that he's "just as monstrous as Hitler" just whitewashes Hitler. The Soviets didn't have any equivalent plan to Generplan Ost.

Excuse me? What about the Ukrainian Holodomor, the Gulags or Ethnic reordering on Eastern Europe after the Iron Curtain fell on the East?

> Stalin did not genocide Eastern Europe, nor did he turn them into a slave caste.

No but he was responsible for the man made famine known as the Holodomor which killed millions Ukrainians and is generally seen as a genocide.

But I agree that "Stalin was every bit the monster hitler was, just saner" is wrong,Stalin's monstrosity pales in to Hitler's, as chief instigator of World War 2 with the Invasion of Poland,as well as in the invasion and occupation of France and Belgium he was responsible for more death Stalin could ever dream of on a world wide scale. Whether he was saner then Hitler is irrelevant frankly

Edited by Ultimatum on Dec 2nd 2019 at 12:45:04 PM

I did not say that Stalin did not commit genocide, I said that when he conquered Eastern Europe he did not behave as monstrously as the Nazis.

As I said, the Soviets had no equivalent of Generalplan Ost. That does not mean that one cannot consider them to be monsters, merely that they are less evil than the Nazis.

Well said.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Dec 2nd 2019 at 4:45:31 AM

Slavery wasn't glossed over in any of my classes and I do remember them talking about WW 1 at multiple points.

Here's a rather extensive Wikipedia article covering comparisons between Nazism and Stalinism

Edited by M84 on Dec 2nd 2019 at 9:16:30 PM

I think it's like comparing Bundy to Dahmer.

Why not hate both as the worst of tyrants?

But yes, you can see that history has a SLANT in my area.

You can compare them as long as you're not trying to rank them or have an ulterior motive for doing so.

Exactly. And many people who go "but what about Stalin?" are defending or trying to whitewash Hitler and co. Enough that, if the conversation is about the Nazis and it turns towards the morality of Stalinism, I immediately assume bad faith on the part of whoever brings it up.

An actual honest extensive attempt to "rank" them would have to encompass at least stuff like body counts, genocide attempts, economic mismanagement, environmental harm, etc.

Actually, I'm going to say that people who say, "Stalin is worse than Hitler" are only the exact same level of problem as "Hitler was worse than Stalin." Because Stalinist apologia is every bit as revolting.

Both are a Moral Event Horizon for the arguer. Because it tries to justify one genocidal psychopath with the other.

Generally speaking, if one is trying to move the conversation away from one asshole by going "but what about this other asshole?", that's not being done in good faith.

Whataboutism is annoying like that.

If the original point of the conversation was to try and compare the two, that'd be a different matter of course.

Edited by M84 on Dec 2nd 2019 at 10:17:02 PM

I will said Stalin does kinda compared to hitler by the sheer scale of brutality and insanity it brought and how much it fuck everything for everyone and sheer black hearted of it, as indeed Stalin was "saner", after all when he try to create a genocide he didnt need so complicated death camp, hunger was efective tool on is own.

and there is Mao who sidestep the discussion by deciding to just murdering is own people and being the biggest genocider in peace time.

.....well, this is depressing.

Back to LOGH. To those who watched it, I get the feeling that the series is basically a political clusterfuck, to put it mildly?

I fully believe the show is authoritarian apologia and kind of hate it despite how entertaining it is.