Monday 15 December 2008

BULLSHIT INCORPORATED





Paul Revere was a totally obscure figure until a poem in 1863 by Longfellow blew him out of all proportion. At best a perifiral figure of the English Civil war in america, he , like the war ,was created more or less by a writer and because people liked the lie. The truth as they say is the first thing to die in a Moronic Inferno, run by morons for morons.That goes for most places; the victors write the history.

In this particular case if there had been no Longfellow there would have been no Paul Revere; he would have been one of those figures who slipped out of history for he had no history.
Other situations like the British army before Sevastopol and the Boston Massacre and The charge at Omdurman are further examples of history twisted and tainted to suit particlar times and minds.
Revere's ride is one of the worst foremost for the fact that it is nearly entirely fictional. Winston Churchill said that the charge at Omdurman was one of the most useless military actions that ever got off the ground but as a schoolboy we were told it was the winning factor in the war against the Mahdi, the only trouble was Churchill was there and the Mahdi had been dead for 15 years. Another charge created as a great wartime tactic was The Charge Of The Light Brigade in the Crimea; this was another myth.
Toy soldier enthusiasts continue to add fantasy upon fantasy to historical myths that are of no use to anyone as they are exactly the same as present day history. Things like Iraq; the bullshit behind a war that needn't ever have been fought and also Vietnam. The victors of Vietnam were the draft dodgers in that these people saw the myth.

No comments: