If the newsmakers help to define our cultural norms according to how they set their nightly agenda, then they should be culpable and responsible for linking us to our historical past with accuracy and substance. If not, then we as an electorate are tied to American traditions and ideals that are built on rhetoric and political manipulation. Around holidays that help to mold a culture around common ideals, it is more important than ever for the building blocks of our identity to be as painstakingly researched, reviewed and presented with true a true reverence for trying to get the story right. I find John Stocils indictment of the pilgrims almost starving to death from practicing socialist methodologies a bit "out there" but at least someone is trying to actually intellectualize and participate in the discovery of where our identity as Americans come from. I can see many of you rolling your eyes thinking that he is just a mad republican (actually libertarian) completely off his rocker throwing these far right wing rhetorical bombs out of his mouth but for goodness sake, look at some of the source material. Read Locke, Madison, Machiavelli, Rousseau and many of the other political theorists that shaped hundreds of years of human history. They all said the same thing as he did, but the viewer would never know that because the media takes no interest in providing context that is older than 10 minutes. It is a crime, because of what is at stake. Do you want to feel like your patriotism or love or hatred of this country is based on a lie? Viewers need to demand more from their news outlets in the way of historical information that can be linked to today's realities, if not the newsmakers become complicit in creating a society whose identity rest on fantasy.
What's really interesting about the Stossel interview is that it aired on a Fox News segment that runs from 1-3 PM Monday through Friday. People like Bill O'Reilly routinely claim that Fox only shows its editorial opinionated content at night, while the daytime programming is only factual hard news. So much for that assertion. Here we are in the middle of the day at Fox News accusing the pilgrims of being pinkos.
ReplyDeleteActually, I have no problem with Stossel's thesis about the pilgrims except for one thing: it's purely anecdotal. The Mayflower Compact only had 41 signatures on it representing the male heads of household from each family. The total population of the Plymouth colony at the beginning in 1620 was only 99 people. Why is this merely anecdotal? Because today in Israel there are dozens of Jewish settlements referred to as Kibbutzim that are owned on a collective basis; just like the Plymouth Colony was when it first started. These Israeli settlements are financially successful and extremely socialistic. Granted, this isn't a naturally successful form of human socio-economic organization, but Stossel's assertion that the Plymouth Colony's initial problems were due simply to its collective organization is not only "out there," it's probably wrong.