Michael Gove, our ignorant and generally nasty education secretary has a long list of bullshit he likes to pull on a regular basis. His latest gem is to lash out at Blackadder – and schools showing it – for spreading “left wing myths” about World War 1. See, they should be teaching about Patriotism and Honour and Courage – not incompetent generals, grim conditions and horrendous loss of life.

World War 1 was one of the stupidest conflicts in the history of mankind. It was fought because all the great powers of Europe rather laughably though their rather shaky domino-alliances would stop them all going to war – instead those alliances ensured that a relatively small regional conflict escalated beyond all measure. It didn’t have to have been the death of the Archduke, not long before there were severe tensions between Britain and Russia which almost set the whole ball rolling anyway. It was inevitable because, ultimately, you had a lot of power mad fools, playing the whole world as if it were some kind of chess board with zero inclination to talk to each other just dying to slaughter a whole bunch of people for the sake of those 3 demons: Patriotism, Honour and Courage (with Glory also raising its ugly head).

Not only was it fought for stupid reasons, but it was fought in a mind numbingly stupid way – a way that was guaranteed to massacre lives over and over again.

This isn’t “Blackadder” or “Oh What a Lovely War” that created the whole “lions lead by donkeys” meme – HISTORY created it. We had a deadly modern battlefield complete with fortified trenches, artillery, machine guns and poison gas and generals who were still using tactics that were 50-100 years out of date. Maybe that could have been excused, but they were so insulated from the suffering on the ground (and had a pretty callous view of the troops anyway – just look at the fate of those men who were shattered by shellshock, so many of them shot as “deserters”) that they stuck to those tactics over and over again, no matter how many times they failed.

This isn’t “revisionism” Gove, this is history. This is the history of conflict that killed over 15 million people for no damn good reason at all and ended after a good part of the continent was absolutely shattered with a treaty that settled very little except sow seeds of simmering resentment that would grow into World War 2.

And as for “patriotism”, “honour” and “courage” (and of course, “glory”)? Manipulative buzz words used by the elite to send a generation of men to their death – and it’s the same lie they try to peddle today. If teachers and TV shows are exposing this then more power to them! Let them expose the rampant foolish pride of nationalism that you want to hang the flag of patriotism on. Let them see how little “honour” there is in innumerable rows of graves – let them find no honour in filling those graves (with their own bodies or another) and instead look for true honour in peace. And the courage to die needlessly for arrogance, for pride, for pigheaded refusal to talk and think and learn – that isn’t courage, that is a foolish obscenity, a waste of insufferable proportions.

There is only one possible good that could have come out of World War 1 and that is showing us the utter horrors of war so starkly as to expose the lies of those who sit peacefully in the halls of power while sending another generation off to die.

If teachers and Blackadder can firmly bury Patriotism, honour and courage as the murderous deceivers they are in the minds of school children then I will celebrate them for having achieved something amazing for our future.

And Gove, from his lofty perch on high, again shows how unfit he is for the role he fills.

This video dropped upon in my to do pile from several sources.

It’s a CBS ‘documentary’ from 1967 on the “HOMOSEXUALS” naturally, it’s triggery and down right unpleasant.

Except, this isn’t just history. This isn’t the Norman Conquest or the Civil War. We’re not talking an event that happened over 3 centuries ago.  This video was made in 1967 – that’s hardly a long time ago. In fact, it was only in 1967 that gay sex became legal in England. That cannot be said enough – sodomy laws in the UK were still on the books in 1967. Gay sex was illegal in 1967. This was within living memory – and I don’t mean in a World-War-1-some-extremely-old-people-with-the-Queen’s-Telegram-can-remember-it, living memory (though, certainly historical events that are centuries old can have major present effects). I mean in the lifetime of my parents.  Scotland didn’t legalise gay sex until 1980. Northern Ireland not until 1982 – I was born in 1981, this happened in my relatively short lifetime. It wasn’t until 2000 that the age consent was equalised (and the bizarre restriction on gay threesomes was removed) I remember that. I remember the SCREAMING MEEMIES the haters had over it. I remember mainstream newspapers printing stories about gay predators seeking out children.

There are people alive today who were arrested and convicted under this law. These people were persecuted by this law, their lives derailed and damaged by this law. How different would their lives have been – lives of people still living. There are literally people today with “buggery” on their criminal records – who have to declare that. Consensual gay sex is STILL appearing on criminal records. That’s not ancient history. That’s not something we can brush over. That’s not something we can pretend happened in a different time to different people.

You can’t pretend it’s a long time ago. It wasn’t – and not only does it leave stains of vileness like that faced by Mr. Crawford, not only does it cause heroes like Alan Turing to be largely removed from the pages of history – but it is still very much a part of our daily lives.

Major, virulent and legal homophobia was not a thing of the past – its vilest forms were common within our lifetimes. This isn’t a historical context – this is today’s context.

We’re not so far away from these times of acceptable hatred to be safe. We’re not so far away from them that we can be so sure we’d never go back to them. We’re not living in a new age or a new era. We’re not looking at the quaint vagaries of a more backward age. We’re looking at our lifetimes, our parent’s lifetimes, the lifetimes of the people in power and the people who are trying to destroy us. This isn’t a distant THEN, this is still very much a relevant NOW.

When the haters spout off their vile rhetoric, they are speaking in this context – because such hatred was the norm such a short time ago – and this is what they wish to return to. Because this is what they remember. And pushing us back to it wouldn’t involve going back all that far.

And that is frightening. We’ve come a long way in a short time – but the time is short and we haven’t left the hatred behind. This isn’t yesterday’s hatred. This isn’t yesterday’s bigotry