A recent diary warned us about this Christian Right's Falsified History, and asked us to try to get PBS to cancel it.
This rubbed me the wrong way since it was asking us to boycott that which we hadn't even seen. So, I searched for the program, which wasn't easy, since it wasn't on any of my cable channels. It was only available on HDTV, which by luck I can pick up on my little rabbit ear antenna. But with no TIVO to record it, I would have to take notes and use my digital camera to capture key excerpts. I have now viewed it carefully three times—including getting up this morning at 4:30 to capture a key segment for the readers here.
Did this program falsify history? If not for one statement, I would have to say, technically, no. They were much too clever, if not for the one example, to do something so crude. Just like George W. Bush never said that Iraq was responsible for 9-11, there are ways to convey false messages far more powerfully than blatant lying.
It is done by tone, by selective presentation of facts, by repetition and by the skillful placement of verbal and visual symbols. This program could be used as a case study in the art of public manipulation—at the post graduate level.
For an example of one technique they used there is this segment showing a recitation of religious symbols that adorn monuments in Washington D.C. Note the calming voiceover, conveying the unspoken certainty that all of these symbols demonstrate a transcendent connection between our country and the almighty. And then there is the music. Turn up your volume and listen to the soaring sound of serenity, of spiritual upliftment as we are wordlessly assured that God is an integral part of our country.
Those who manufactured this pseudo history were very careful not to convey something that was not true. They got by with endless repetition of those examples that supported their argument, while ignoring those events that tell a different story. Now watch the following excerpt for their one outright deceit.
In the context of the spokesman making an elaborate claim that article six of the constitution means something other than what its words convey, the screen shows a copy of the hand written constitution panning to this sentence:
......and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath
The voiceover appears to reads along: ...every government official has to take an Oath to God.
The video image panning the sentence stops at the word “oath” and then cuts away. Here is the completion of the actual sentence as written by Congress and approved by the thirteen states:
.....shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
Thats it. Not only is God not mentioned in this clause, he is not mentioned in the entire United States Constitution. This simple obvious deceit conveys the overriding motivation of this film enterprise, to spread their claim that God and County are inextricably bound together. They were not to be deterred by trivial impediments such as mis-characterizing the words of our constitution.
Only such extreme ideological fervor could have blinded them to the outrageousness of such an insult to this revered document. It demonstrates more than anything we can say how little they respect this Constitution they claim to be so dedicated to preserve.
-----
I wrote a second part of this diary, with some completely different angles that is linked here.
No comments:
Post a Comment