Train of Thought
Sam Aurelius Milam III
In
May of 2008, I was watching an old video recording of Trains Unlimited,
a documentary series presented several years earlier by The History Channel.
I was just watching train documentaries and wasn't looking for anything
with political significance. However, things don't always go as planned.
While I was watching the documentary, I encountered this interesting statement
in the segment about the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe.
| The
Santa Fe found a group of farmers who were eager to immigrate. They
were Mennonites, a Christian sect who were being persecuted by the Czar
in the Ukraine, which was formerly the Soviet Union. |
Not
only was the grammar sloppy, the Ukraine wasn't the Soviet Union.
It was one of several member states of the Soviet Union. Worse yet,
the narrator wasn't speaking of the Ukraine of today. He was speaking
of the Ukraine of 1869. In 1869, there hadn't ever been a Soviet
Union. I was surprised at such a statement from a station that bills
itself as "The History Channel".
Later,
in the segment titled The American Streamliner, I encountered yet
another incorrect statement. That segment included a discussion of
the circumstances of the railroads during the years leading up to World
War II and shortly thereafter.
| When
America went off to war, it went via the rails. Weapons, ammunition,
parts, and supplies were all moved by train. Some 34 million men
and women were drafted and whether they were headed for combat or returning
on furlough, nearly every one of them went by train. |
Women
weren't drafted during World War II and they didn't go into combat.
After observing that error and recalling the earlier one, I began to consider
the implications. Both errors were false statements about the past.
They both had political overtones. One such error might be irrelevant.
Two of them could be significant.
| No
matter how paranoid you are, you're not paranoid enough.
— Suzanne Modeski
The X-Files |
I
recalled the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1984. It's job
had been to "rectify" history, bringing it into conformity with the current
political orthodoxy. One facet of today's political orthodoxy is
that women participate in the U.S. military in various combat capacities.
Any other situation would be politically incorrect.
| Whatever
was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite
simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over
your own memory. "Reality control," they called it; In Newspeak,
"doublethink."
— from 1984
by George Orwell |
If
the government was reluctant to admit that it had ever been incorrect about
anything, then it would be convenient to arrange that women had always
participated in the U.S military in combat capacities. If everyone
eventually came to believe the lie and if all of the reports told the same
lie, then who could prove otherwise? The lie would have passed into
history and become the truth.
The
success of such an unlikely scheme can sometimes seem more plausible.
| The
hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.
— William Ross Wallace
|
Early
in July of this year, I noticed the inscription on a T-shirt that was being
worn by an 11-year-old boy. The inscription was, "If I Don't Remember
It Then It Didn't Happen". I mentioned to the boy that the idea was
right out of 1984, by George Orwell. He looked blank.
I asked him if he'd ever read 1984. He mumbled, "No".
All that's needed is an unending series of victories over one's own memory.
Little
errors such as the ones in Trains Unlimited don't prove the existence
in this
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| August 2008 | Frontiersman, c/o 4984 Peach Mountain Drive, Gainesville, Georgia 30507 | Page 1 |
