VIDEO: Ken Burns' anti-American lies

If you read "'The American Revolution' - Ken Burns' new, woke version" (WWW 18/11/25), you'll know that I didn't think much of Ken Burns' latest opus. The production values were fine, but the overall message was skewed hard to the liberal narrative.

Most of the reviews in the mainstream media were predictably positive. There wasn't a lot of fact-checking, nor was the phrase "revisionist history" much used. That's because the huge success of The Civil War has made Ken Busns something of a national treasure, virtually untouchable. Hey, the Obamas love him, the Bidens love him, and... wait for it... his series are on PBS, the font of all that's Great and Good in America.

Walt is relieved, then, to find that not everyone drank the Kool-aid. [The followers of Jim Jones actually drank Flavor-aid. Ed.] Negative reviews from a number of conservative outlets, including National Review and Amac, argue that the series is "bad history" and "ahistorical woke nonsense".

But wait, there's more. Only today did Ed. stumble upon this video by Matt Walsh, an American political commentator for the Daily Wire and host of  The Matt Walsh Show.

In this episode, Mr Walsh takes a close look at The American Revolution, which he calls "a piece of sophisticated anti-American propaganda." "There is a neverending effort to make Americans embarrassed of their history," he says, "and to give credit for its achievements to people who don't deserve it. American history has been rewritten for this purpose." Listen up!

VIDEO: "The American Revolution" - Ken Burns' new, woke version

For the last couple of nights, I've been watching bits and pieces [There was hockey on the other channel. Ed.] of The American Revolution, the latest offering from revisionist historian cum film-maker Ken Burns. It's streaming (also avaible over the air) on PBS, the soi-disant Public Broadcasting System, which is like so-called National Public Radio (NPR), only with pictures.

The fact that this new series is on PBS should tell you what to expect, which is not exactly what they tell you in the introductory summary...

"Thirteen American colonies unite in rebellion, win an eight-year war to secure their independence, and establish a new form of government that would inspire democratic movements at home and around the globe. What begins as a political clash between colonists and the British government grows into a bloody struggle that will engage more than two dozen nations and forever change the world.'

...or in the official trailer.

 

Do you see any warning signs there? No? Let me give you one. The narrator chosen by Mr Burns is one Peter Coyote (born Peter Robert Cohon).an American actor, director, screenwriter, author... and political activist. In "The Theater of Protest", Mr Coyote explains his approach to effective, nonviolent protest, which he developed while teaching a class at Harvard. He emphasizes that protests are ceremonies, an invitation to a better world. He says protests should be led by wimmin, for "inclusivity", and that "monitors with whistles" stop violence. Get the idea?

Other commentators, who I'd never heard of but are presented as historians and writers, include a good DEI mix of Jewish women (one of whom seems to have a slight palsy), black men (including one with blonde dreadlocks), and other mild-mannered, instantly forgettable liberals academics. No Shelby Foote here! 

I was not surprised, then, to learn that the American Revolution was not so much about freeing Great Britain's American colonies from the tyranny and taxation of King George III, as about partnering with Indians Native Indigenous Americans and strong, independent wimmin to obtain justice for the oppressed Negro African-American slaves. As Johnny Carson would have said, "I did not know that!"

The series suffers, in comparison with Ken Burns' The Civil War, in not having photographs to work with, so the visuals are mostly oil paintings of the principal actors involved -- politicians, soldiers, statesmen and the like -- all "marble men". 

We hear, occasionally, the words of common white people, taken from their letters, but we learn little about them. You'd almost think that the only common people of any consequence were the slaves who are quoted and talked about out of all proportion to the numbers of such people in America at the time. Even George Washington's black man-servant gets his 15 seconds of fame, plus a heroic image on his black self at Washington's side going into battle.

This is only a preliminary comment. If the rest of the series is like the first two episodes, I won't be writing about The American Revolution again. But I'm not going to say "Don't watch it." The accounts of the battles are pretty good, so you can just zap through the woke bullshit and still learn parts of the nantion's history that the too many Americans have forgotten.

From the Bee: "Elmo Decries Defunding Of PBS As Jewish Conspiracy"

Ed. here. "Where's Walt?", I hear you ask. He's recovering from a long weekend. In his absence, we'd like to share a post which appeared on the Babylon Bee -- your trusted source for Christian satire -- yesterday. We hasten to add that the image below comes from the PatriotPost. 

Longtime Sesame Street resident Elmo decried the federal government's defunding of PBS as an "obvious Jewish conpsiracy." In a special edition of Elmo's World, the iconic red puppet unleashed a 40-minute tirade blaming the Jewish people for a laundry list of world issues.

"Elmo knows who's responsible! Hee-hee!" said Elmo, furiously banging his goldfish bowl. "Elmo knows who controls the flow of money! Oh, oh, look, everyone. Dorothy the goldfish has a question! Dorothy wants to know which members of Congress are controlled by AIPAC! Ha-ha-ha!"

The disturbing rant initially featured Elmo calling the PBS defunding a Jewish plot, but quickly descended into inculpating the Jewish people for all of history's wars. "Oh! Elmo wants to ask where the number six million really comes from for the Holocaust!" said Elmo. 

"Hee-hee-hee. Elmo just asking questions! Oh, oh! Now that Elmo start asking questions about Holocaust, PBS loses its funding! Elmo thinks he knows how this works, hee-hee-hee!"

At publishing time, Elmo had reportedly flushed Dorothy down the toilet after becoming suspicious of her last name "Goldfish."

Comment from Ed.: The loonie left, DEI-obsessed creators of Sesame Street say poor widdle Elmo's account was hacked. Well, they would say that, wouldn't they. Defunding of PBS sounds like an excellent idea to us, the logical sequence to the long-overdue defunding of NPR. Winning!

For more excellent humour in a jugular vein, bookmark the Babylon Bee. Better yet, subscribe! Tell `em Walt sent ya.

Say it ain't so, Buffy! CBC outs beloved Pretendian

2017, the 150th anniversary of Confederation, was made over by Blackie McBlackface, the Gliberal Prime Minister of all Canuckistan, into the Year of the Indian. It was time for guilty whites to acknowledge that they (or their "colonial" ancestors) stole the Great White North from the peoples who used to be called Indians and Eskimos, forever hence to be known as First Nations;and Inuit, respectively.

Canada's shrinking populaation of whites tried to give the land back to the indigenous ones, but they said they'd rather have money (prefereably US dollars), thank you. So "land acknowledgment ceremonies" became the order of the day, a Confiteor to be repeated at the beginning of any public event and even on radio and TV programmes such as Hockey Night in Canada (the only show that anyone watches).

Six years later, the "truth and reconciliation" bullshit goes on and on. But today the CBC (Canada's state-owned broadcaster) is set to reveal the real truth -- not the same as the fake truth which it normally broadcasts -- about one First Nations person who has become an icon of wokeness not just in Canada but also the US of A. 

Walt refers to Buffy Sainte-Marie, a musician known for decades of "Indigenous activism". CBC’s investigative show The Fifth Estate is scheduled to air tonight an episode titled "Making an Icon".

A description of the episode doesn't name Sainte-Marie but says an icon’s "claims to Indigenous ancestry are being called into question by family members" and that its investigation includes genealogical documentation and historical research.

In a statement yesterday, Ms Sainte-Marie said "I don’t know where I’m from or who my birth parents were, and I will never know. Which is why to be questioned in this way today is painful. To those who question my truth, I say with love, I know who I am."

The octogenarian also posted a video on social media addressing the upcoming episode, saying she has shared her story for 60 years. She called herself "a proud member of the Native community with deep roots in Canada.... But there are also many things I don’t know, which I’ve always been honest about. I don’t know where I’m from, who my birth parents are or how I ended up a misfit in a typical white Christian New England home."

Buffy Sainte-Marie became popular in the hippy-dippy `60s for her singing and songwriting, and used her fame to push the "Lo, the poor Indian" agenda at a time when it wasn't receiving much attention and indigenous women were still called "squaws". Her debut record, It’s My Way!, featured several notable songs, including "Universal Soldier", written about the individual responsibility for war. 

Her appearance on Sesame Street began a symbiotic relationship with the PBS groomerfest which has lasted right up to last year.* Here's a stanza she wrote for her first appearance on the show in 1976.

I’m an Indian and I like sunshine

I’m an Indian and I like friends 

And I am real and I can feel and I’d love to take your hand 

Way heyo he-yo! 

Way heyo he-yo!

*Source: "My time on 'Sesame Street' with Buffy Sainte-Marie", "American Masters" on PBS, 6/12/22. 

Excerpt: Sainte-Marie is iconic. She embodies a combination of fierce activism in her quest to fight for Indigenous rights and dignity and a strong belief that everything and everyone can change and ripen. The lyrics in her songs teach us about the devastating history of colonization while encouraging us to stay hopeful. Her educator roots shine bright in everything she does.

What a shame she isn't really an Indian, or First Nations or whatever. Still, she's the first Pretendian to rise to such lofty heights, even earlier than Fauxcahontas, the Senator who (for the time being) represents the great (?) state of Massachusetts, which is where Ms Sainte-Marie was raised. 

*Further reading if you want to brainwash your kids: "Celebrate Buffy Sainte-Marie and Amplify Indigenous Peoples With Your Kids", PBS (who else), 16/11/22.

VIDEOS: Are your kids watching Sesame Street?

Sesame Street is good, right? Kids who watch it learn to count, they learn the alphabet, they learn to play nice with others... That was the case 50 years ago, when my kids watched. I watched too, and could do pretty good impressions of Grover (my favourite character), The Count and Bert and Ernie. All good clean fun, and educational too! What could go wrong?

Answer: plenty! Once the children's show got not just established but popular, the creators at the Children's Television Workshop (known now as Sesame Workshop) and their enablers at PBS became confident enough to start pushing their liberal, secular humanist, pro-queer agenda. Now the show is nothing but incessant propaganda for "diversity", "inclusiveness", and the current flavour of the month, gender ideology. Check this out.



Ah yes, some boys like to dress up as heroes, some like to play with dolls, some like to dress up as dolls. Right? Just in case the point was not clear, Sesame Street's producers announced this week that Billy Porter, a homosexual cross-dressing actor -- oh, he's black too! -- who is known to wear dresses on red carpets to posh Hollywood events, will be bringing his "fierce vibes" to the show, to do his bit to mold the minds of young viewers into the politically correct shape.

To the surprise of the show's creators, many fans have taken to social media to express outrage. According to Big League Politics, one parent said, "That is pushing [too] much at little children, it makes no sense, kids have [too] much on their little plates as it is. Why add more?"

Another viewer commented, "Sesame Street is for children. And diversity should be taught at a child appropriate level. A man in a dress is not child appropriate, in fact, it can be confusing. While striving to teach to 'be yourself' you're teaching boys who are masculine that it's not OK for them to be masculine."

This is nothing new. Check out the video, featuring our old buddy Gavin McInnes, posted in "Lefties demand white males be ashamed of being normal", 10/6/16.

Another Sesame Street fan asked, "As though our children are not confused enough. What is your agenda?" The agenda is clear enough. Sesame Street has been on the woke bandwagon for quite some time, pushing gender equality and gay marriage on children for years. It's all part of the whole pro-queer agenda. The victims are our children, who are subjected to this incessant propaganda and wind up confused and, all too often, abused. Watch this!



"Don't confuse me!" was posted over seven years ago, and the petition referred to at the end is long gone, but lots of people got the message. Lots of people, including (I hope) you, dear reader, know that the agenda being pushed by the "alphabet people" and their liberal enablers is morally wrong and a threat to our families. But we aren't standing up to them, and they're still at it, packing their fudge into the minds of kids who aren't young or sophisticated enough to know they're being groomed. Parents! Are you going to sit there and not do something, anything, to protest?

"What can I do?", I hear you ask. For starters, how about turning off the TV when Sesame Street comes on. There are many fine Christian TV shows for kids. Click here to visit Faithful Moms, "nurturing faith + faithfulness in our hearts & homes", for some suggestions. May God and His Blessed Mother guide and protect you and your children!

Further reading: "Washington Democrats Push Mandatory LGBTQ-Focused Sex Ed for Kindergartners", Conservative Media, undated.

VIDEO: Justin Trudeau channels Mr Dressup

Who was "Mr Dressup"? Most Canucks who were kids in the 70s and 80s will remember the TV show of that name, which ran on the Canadian Broadcorping Castration from 1967 to 1996. The show was developed and produced by Daniel McCarthy, who later became the head of children's programming for CBC Television. It starred Ernie Coombs as the eponymous character.

Mr Dressup would lead children through a series of songs, stories, arts, crafts and imagination games, with the help of his puppet friends Casey and Finnegan, a child and a dog who lived in a tree house in Mr Dressup's backyard. Some critics likened the series to the American series, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. In fact, that show started being broadcast on PBS a year later, in 1968. And it was produced by Ernie Coombs' old professional associate, Fred Rogers. So you have to give Canucks the credit [or blame. Ed.] for the genre.

But I digress. Part of Mr Dressup's shtick was to dress up (geddit?) in different costumes, according to the theme of the episode. Those who thought that was entertaining and clever mourned the loss of Mr Dressup, but were pleasantly surprised (apparently) when the character was reborn in 2013 as Just In Trudeau, who went on to become Prime Minister of Canada.

"Mr Socks" became famous ["infamous", shurely. Ed.] last year for dressing up as an Indian (not native American -- the other kind) to impress the folks in Mumbai when he went there to recruit more immigrants and potential Liberal voters. During the recent federal election campaign, whistleblowers leaked photos of M Trudeau wearing brownface and blackface at costume parties and, errr, other events. It is said he put a banana in his pants as part of his blackface get-up.

So it would seem that being a latterday Mr Dressup is all part of Mr Socks' plan for winning the hearts and minds of not just Canadians but but also whatever audience he happens to be addressing. A clever Canuck cartoonist who posts on YouTube as "Mountain Bear" has captured the essence of Just In and his charisma in this short but pithy video. Enjoy!

RIP Tank man and all victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre

Let us not forget what happened 25 years ago today. Here is an iconic picture to serve as a reminder.

On 4 June 1989, the world -- outside of China -- saw this image of a lone man staring down a procession of tanks in Tiananmen Square, the main square of Beijing, the capital of Communist China. What happened to him is unknown, but he's presumed to have died, along with hundreds of students and other young people who were demonstrating for democracy and freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech, not to mention democracy, remains unknown in China. The so-called "People's Republic" remains in the iron grip of the Communist Party. Censorship is so complete that most of today's university students have never heard of Tiananmen Square and "the events of 6.4.89", as the massacre is known. When Walt was teaching in China, some years ago, we foreign teachers were forbidden -- on pain o9f dismissal and deportation -- to even mention "the three T's": Taiwan, Tibet and Tiananmen Square.

Those few students who had heard of the massacre had been brainwashed to think that the quelling of the demonstration -- it wasn't even an uprising, you understand -- somehow helped the development of a modern, prosperous China! Today, there will be demonstrations in Hong Kong, where a limited amount of free speech is still allowed. But in China proper, Tiananmen Square will not be mentioned. The Communists have succeeded in erasing it from the public consciousness.

However, the grim story remains alive in the West, thanks in part to the efforts of media like Frontline, the flagship public affairs series of American public broadcaster PBS. Frontline has produced an excellent documentary on Tiananmen Square called "The Tank Man". Click here and follow the links to watch it online. (Sorry, not available to Chinese IP addresses.)

A couple of thoughts about war from Gwynne Dyer

Gwynne Dyer know something about war. Born in Newfoundland almost six years before it became part of Canada, he joined the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve at the age of 16. While still in the reserve, he obtained a BA in history from Memorial University in 1963. Later he earned an MA in military history from Rice University (1966) and a PhD in military and Middle Eastern history at King's College London (1973).

Mr. Dyer served in the Canadian, American and British naval reserves. He was employed as a senior lecturer in war studies at the Royal Military Academy (Sandhurst) from 1973 through 1977. In 1973 he began writing articles for leading London newspapers on the Arab-Israeli conflict, and soon decided to abandon academic life for a full-time career in journalism.

In the mid-1980s, Mr. Dyer created and hosted War, an outstanding documentary mini-series that aired on BBC and PBS. As so often happens, the series begat a companion book (Crown Publishers, New York, 1985).

In the latter part of the book, the author discusses the future of war and the role of the military in today's society. More specifically, he considers the likelihood of an all-out nuclear war which would lead to the annihilation of mankind. Here are a couple of quotes which I think worth passing along.

Since it is the professional duty of military officers to identify threats to the security of the state, they are constantly searching for potential dangers abroad -- and virtually every other state within military reach constitutes such a threat simply by virtue of having armed forces of its own. The planning reflex of general staffs provides governments with detailed and regularly updated scenarios for conflicts in unlikely places with improbably enemies (as late as the 1920s military planners in the United States and Canada were maintaining carefully worked out plans to invade each other), which on occasion can lend undue military importance to minor incidents and alarms.


There is a new common factor discernible in all the armed conflicts that ravage the contemporary world, and especially in the majority of those conflicts that are irregular in nature. Military power is becoming less effective in achieving decisive, politically satisfactory results at every level of conflict. This is as true for enemies fighting with conventional weapons as for the nuclear-armed great powers, and it is equally true for governments and for insurgents in the lower intensity irregular wars that now account for most of the world's actual killing.

Gwynne Dyer wrote those words in the 1980s -- before 9/11, before the Gulf Wars, before Iraq, before Afghanistan, before Libya and before whatever is coming tomorrow. He has been criticized for his "anti-militarism" and "pacifist tendencies" by many warhawks, including Conrad Black who discontinued publishing Dyer's columns in his newspapers. But Walt thinks War makes some good points. I suspect Ron Paul agrees. 

You can find the War mini-series on YouTube. Here's the link to Part I (of 6), and a search for "War with Gwynne Dyer" will call up the rest. Each part runs about 55 minutes.

Also on YouTube is a more recent (and shorter) commentary by Mr. Dyer on the wars in the Middle East. It's called "The Mess They Made" (2007). Here it is.



Conrad Black no longer owns any newspapers. Gwynne Dyer's insightful columns continue to appear in the Fort Mudge Weakly and other fine newspapers.

War of 1812: film at 9!

Listen up, history buffs! PBS is airing a terrific new made-for-TV film on the War of 1812, tonight at 9 p.m. EDT.

Since the teaching of our own history is sadly neglected in American and Canadian schools these days, Walt will give you a quick recap. At the beginning of the second decade of the 19th century, the hated British (and others) were engaging Napoleon in Europe, and getting the worst of it. The Congress of the new(ish) United States of America reckoned that it would be a good time to finish what they started in 1776, and drive the British out of Canada. Doing so would only be "a matter of marching", it was said.

Well sir, American soldiers clashed with British, Canadian and Indian ["First Nations", surely! Ed.] forces to ultimately shape the geography and the identity of eastern North America as it is known today. In other words, the American invasion of Canada failed. Thus the War of 1812 became the first war the USA lost ["failed to win", surely! Ed.] until Vietnam.

Now PBS is attempting to do for the War of 1812 what Ken Burns' great series did for the Civil War. The lead station behind their new film, The War of 1812, which airs tonight is Buffalo's WNED-TV, which is only natural because the main part of the war was fought on the Niagara Frontier and Lakes Erie and Ontario.

Said Donald Boswell, WNED's president, "We have proudly recreated the War of 1812 for both nations. This timely examination of a shared history allows us to celebrate our past together, and renew the bond of our present and future as national neighbours." Rumours of Mr. Boswell's bid for the presidensity of the USA are unconfirmed as of this morning.

Historical figures depicted in the film include Tecumseh, William Henry Harrison and President James Madison, along with a Canadian icons such as General Sir Isaac Brock and, of course, Laura Secord.

The film also recounts dramatic human stories of ordinary citizens, the political alliances of the various Native American ["First Nations", surely! Ed.] nations and the African-American slaves who reached for their freedom by fighting for the British. [It's not Black History Month, but if there's a hotbed of political correctness in the USA, it's PBS! Ed.]

All kidding aside, it's an excellent piece of work. Back in July, Walt was privileged to see a segment of it, dealing with the assault on Fort Erie, and found it very well done, indeed.

The War of 1812 airs on PBS stations on Monday, October 10th -- that's tonight! -- at 9 p.m. EDT. Click here for more information and a video trailer.

Footnote: As far as anyone knows, Laura Secord never made a candy in her life. When an American company bought a small Canadian candy-making concern about a century later, they put Laura's name on the new outfit because it sounded good!

Another footnote: Click here to read "War of 1812 battles a nation's collective amnesia", good column by Konrad Yakabuski from today's Globe and Mail. Here's an excerpt:
Historians consider the war a “draw” because the Treaty of Ghent that ended it entrenched the status quo ante bellum. But the truth is, the Americans sought to engulf us; instead they bankrupted their own country (the United States defaulted on its debt) without gaining an inch of territory. That doesn’t sound like a draw.

Red Green gives you some Christmas laughs

As is well known (see earlier post), Canadians suck at sitcoms and excel at sketch comedy. However, we have not discussed an eminently funny and internationally successful Canadian show which is neither. That would be The Red Green Show, sometimes known as The New Red Green Show.

The Wikipedia entry for The Red Green Show describes it as a cross between a sitcom and a sketch show. Walt says the only thing "cross" about it is Mrs. Walt's expression every time Red and the Possum Lodge gang come on the air.

Really the show is a series of monologues by Red (Steve Smith) or dialogues between Red and his nephew Harold (Pat McKenna) or other lodge members and friends, including such notable actors as Gordon Pinsent, Dave Thomas and -- as you'll see -- Graham Greene.

The writing, by Steve Smith, Rick Green (who appears but does not speak as Bill Smith) and others is brilliant, although some would say you have to be Canadian to get all the jokes. In keeping with the spirit of the season, Walt presents [geddit? ed.] a couple of Christmas segments.





The Red Green Show aired on various channels in Canada, with its ultimate home at CBC, and on PBS in the United States, from 1991 until the series finale in April 2006. It's in reruns on some comedy channels and PBS stations.

Yep, there's a website. PBS also has a Red Green page. "Keep your stick on the ice!"

Bacha bazi: Find out about it on PBS

Bacha bazi means "boy play" in one of the languages of Afghanistan. It's part of the culture we're fighting to preserve, along with democracy of course. I wouldn't have known this but for a heads-up from John Doyle in the TV review column of the Globe & Mail.

In a piece headlined "The taboo topic our mission in Afghanistan ignores", Mr. Doyle recommends watching an investigative report on this disgusting (his word) facet of Afghan culture, which will air on PBS today (Tuesday). Check your local listings for time and channel.

Tune in and you will see how preteen and young teenage boys are sold to powerful businessmen and former warlords. Sold for sex.

Walt wonders why pedophilia and sexual abuse gets so much media coverage when it's a problem in the Church, but almost none when it's part of the Afghan/Muslim tradition. It says something that this documentary got its first and only mention in the entertainment section. If a slave auction of underage boys was held in the Vatican it would be front-page news!

It seems the topic – like the alleged abuse of Afghan detainees – is taboo, something government and senior military officials would prefer to ignore.

To quote Mr. Doyle: "The mission in Afghanistan is sold to us as protecting civilians and training an Afghan army and police to eventually take over that mission. Nobody wants us talking about the possibility that the mission includes deliberately ignoring what we consider evil committed by allies in Afghanistan.

"That would mean debating a moral quandary. And the morality of the mission in Afghanistan is supposed to be crystal clear. Essentially, what everybody is ignoring is the possibility that 'getting the job done' in Afghanistan (as the military usually describes it) might mean turning a blind eye to pedophilia."