The Right's 'Big Lie' Strategy: When Losing, Simply Rewrite History

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Chauncey DeVega

The Right's 'Big Lie' Strategy: When Losing, Simply Rewrite History
Contemporary conservatives aim to disseminate an alternate version of reality through the media echo chamber and the schools.

May 13, 2011 |


America, the Tea Party GOP is coming for your kids.

Mike Huckabee, Republican front runner and presumptive 2012 presidential nominee is getting into the education business. He has started a project, "Learn Our History," where on a monthly basis--sort of like BMG or Columbia House music--Huckabee's organization will send subscribers Time Travel Academy, an animated children's cartoon featuring a group of intrepid time travelers who teach lessons about U.S. history "without a political bias."

If judged by its artistic qualities, the cartoon is so poorly done as to be a pitiable joke. Its main characters are a contrived group of multicultural "tweens." The history is predictable: Ronald Reagan is America's savior, America is a Judeo-Christian country preordained by God to be exceptional, and flag-waving jingoistic nationalism is a virtue and never a sin. The guiding principle of this right-wing approved version of U.S. history is simple: "What we see and hear isn't always the same as what we read in books, or see on TV. We know the truth. And that's good enough for us."

Watch: Watch the cartoon: http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/150937/the_right%27s_%27big_lie%27_strategy%3A_when_losing%2C_simply_rewrite_history/


The takeaway here is simple. The "liberals," a cabal that ostensibly holds sway over public schools and universities, are corrupt and anti-American. In their fantasy, conservatives have access to a quasi-secret, pure and unadulterated version of history that is only available to true believers. The Right is the proverbial keeper of the flame. They are obligated, through a gospel of sorts, to both protect and share this "correct," self-validating (and quite inaccurate) version of American history with all who will listen -- and they're using education and the media to do it.

The Time Travel Academy is patently absurd. Huckabee’s effort at overt historical revisionism is part of a larger national trend that has been decades in the making. Here, conservatives are playing chess while the Left and progressives are playing checkers. To that end, the Right has developed a two-fold strategy. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/150937/the_right%27s_%27big_lie%27_strategy%3A_when_losing%2C_simply_rewrite_history/

[rurallib]

1. WOW!

Reagan a man of 'great morals'- seriously?
No doubt McCarthy will be lionized and FDR will finally get his due.

[unblock]

2. propagandists. we CAN NOT DEFEAT them until we call them what they are.

[Faryn Balyncd]

3. Huckabee's revisionist propaganda has a central goal of INNOCULATING RW children from real facts

It is not a casual, uncoordinated product, but it is clearly and consistently designed to augment the Right Wings's alternate fantasy world as presented through their noise machine.


Huckabee might be, not just a "cornpone fascist", but the single most dangerous political personality in the right wing puppet arsenal of electoral candidates.


Huckabee's "Time Travel Academy" may truly be pitiable art, but it is propaganda of the HIGHEST quality, ranking with the evils masters of the 1930's.

[izquierdista]

4. "Some say our nation has passed its zenith..

well, I'm here to put this crate into a power-dive and make it go out with a spectacular crash!" -- Ronald Reagan, The Truthful Quotes.

[starroute]

5. You can't fight this stuff by being saner and more rational

I'm starting to think that the only way to counter it might be by going into prankster mode.

In this case, that could mean concocting absolutely vicious but almost-indistinguishable-from-the-real-thing parodies of the originals. If the production values are that low, it shouldn't be hard to do -- or maybe just swipe the visuals and dub in your own soundtrack.

Go nuts. Fill Reagan's mouth with treason and blasphemy. Or have the time travelers discover the hideous truth about Iran-Contra and the October Surprise and vow to bring the real facts back to the present. Or go into full-on Rude Pundit mode. Whatever works.

And then put it up on YouTube under a claim of protected political satire. (Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46)

Anybody out there got the necessary skill-set?

[TatonkaJames]

6. Talking about the truth and rewriting history...

They can't even use Reagan's real voice.