Friday, July 18, 2014
Poor old Santayana
The trite old saying has been completely null and void for a long time. I'm not sure if it was ever a valid conditional.
Plain fact is: Governments do not learn. Governments always repeat history, until history eliminates them entirely. At that point they stop repeating, because they do not exist.
Fine illustration this morning. BBC has been running a daily feature on the 100th anniversary of the Franz Ferdinand thing, including objective analysis of the propaganda that helped both sides to stir up a war.
Immediately after this morning's episode of Sarajevo, BBC roared into pro-war propaganda against Russia, based on this year's Lusitania. No questions asked, no objectivity, no analysis. Victoria Nudelman wants a war against Russia, so we make war against Russia. Nudelman instigated it, I believe it, that settles it.
Reading history? Fuck, we can't even learn the lesson when the quiz comes one second after the lesson.
Teacher: Don't make war! Don't make war! Don't make war! Do you understand?
Student: Yes, I understand. MAKE WAR! MAKE WAR! MAKE WAR!
Later thought: No, it's worse than that. Here's what we have now:
Teacher: Don't make war! Don't make war! Don't make war! Do I understand?
Teacher: Yes, I understand. MAKE WAR! MAKE WAR! MAKE WAR!
¶ 3:32 AM 
