Those who design the curriculum for Britain's secondary schools no longer consider Winston Churchill a key (enough) historical figure (HT Michelle Malkin):
FURY erupted last night after Sir Winston Churchill was axed from school history lessons.
Britain’s cigar-chomping World War Two PM — famed for his two-finger victory salute — was removed from a list of figures secondary school children must learn about.
Instead they will be taught about “relevant” issues such as global warming and drug dangers. Churchill’s grandson, Tory MP Nicholas Soames, branded the move “total madness.”
The decision to axe Churchill is part of a major shake-up aimed at dragging the national curriculum into the 21st century, it was claimed last night.
Story Continues Below Ad ↓But the plan — hatched by advisers — angered schools secretary Ed Balls, who vowed to probe ALL the changes to the curriculum.
The proposals will see traditional timetables torn up, with pupils focusing on modern “relevant” topics such as drug and booze abuse, climate change and GM foods.
Churchill — voted the greatest ever Briton — goes off the required lessons list, along with Hitler, Gandhi, Stalin and Martin Luther King.
Though Churchill's apparent demotion is the most appalling, it's hard to imagine what any history teacher might say about the 1940s and 1950s without mentioning the names of the others.
It should not be forgotten, but it appears that it shall be: A large part of the reason Churchill's warnings were not heeded is that they were not often enough heard. As Powerline noted several years ago, the BBC, the UK's government-underwritten broadcasting monopoly, was largely responsible for that:
The Churchill biographies note mostly in passing that the BBC systematically barred Churchill from discussing his defense and foreign policy views during the 1930's; Sir John Reith was head of the BBC at the time. Manchester states that "Reith saw to it that [Churchill] was seldom heard over the BBC..." Reith wrote of Churchill in Reith's monumentally voluminous diaries, "I absolutely hate him."
In 1938 Churchill was scheduled to appear on the BBC for a half-hour talk -- on the Mediterranean. When the Czech crisis erupted, Manchester reports, Churchill asked that the program be cancelled. On the Saturday before Parliament's debate on the Munich Agreement, Churchill agreed nevertheless to meet with (future Communist spy) Guy Burgess of the BBC. Churchill complained to Burgess, according to Burgess's recollection, that "he had been very badly treated in the matter of political broadcasts and that he was always muzzled by the BBC."
Why did Reith detest Churchill? In Reith's eyes, Churchill was of course a warmonger, and Reith, not coincidentally, held Hitler in the highest regard. How little times have changed.
Indeed.
Even after World War II the Beeb's handling of Churchill has usually been at best lukewarm, and at worst grudgingly obligatory. As its sanitizing of references to "terror" and "terrorists" in its initial reports of the 7/7/05 London bombings shows, its failure to recognize tyranny and mortal threats in favor of politically-correct whitewashing continues to this day.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
—Tom Blumer is president of a training and development company in Mason, Ohio, and is a contributing editor to NewsBusters
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Londonistan Bridge is falling
July 14, 2007 - 19:35 ET by drillanwrLondonistan Bridge is falling down
Falling Down
Londonistan Bridge is falling down
My Fair burka ...
Hahaha-good one. Too bad
July 14, 2007 - 21:38 ET by kathleenirishHahaha-good one. Too bad it's true.
I feel embarrassed for them. What a sham! What's worse, Global Warming is replacing The Great Sir Winston Churchill? A genuine, ridiculous travesty!
God Save the UK, and Western Civilization, for that matter.
Anyone who says they support the troops but not the mission is a liar.
I wonder if Nevile Chamberli
July 14, 2007 - 19:38 ET by ThisnThatI wonder if Nevile Chamberlin has also been banned?
BTW, this type of selective history has been going on for quite a while in the U.S. For example, nothing bad has ever happened before President Bush was elected -- and from that day forward, nothing good has occured. According to all the Dims, and looney left, that is.
Really? the guy who got upset
July 14, 2007 - 19:42 ET by mandrakeReally? the guy who got upset about this named Ed Balls?
Too funny!
I understand than many (more
July 14, 2007 - 19:45 ET by danboI understand than many (more than will admit it) are sorry that the west (America and England) won the cold war.
But, are they also sorry we won WWII?
Then Hitler is also on the list. Do they want to pretend that WWII ever existed.?
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of truth and knowledge will be shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods. Albert Einstein
It would appear that the
July 14, 2007 - 20:00 ET by Army BratIt would appear that these retards...no...wait...that's an insult to the retarded. Um...these idiot revisionists are attempting to doom their children to repeating history. Happy Trails...
Sec. Rice: Mr. President, you
July 15, 2007 - 12:34 ET by drillanwrSec. Rice: Mr. President, you have multiple emergency calls from England and The EU.
Prez. : Hello, Brownie! How's the office remodeling going for ya, son? ... Huh? You want us to what? ... Huh? Immediately send our Army and Marines where? ... Huh? ... You're being `over' what? ... Heads are rolling in the streets? ... Damn! That sounds messy! ... What? ... Sorry, can't seem to hear ya, fella ... Call France. Their Army's closer. Have a nice day ..." <CLICK> "Condi, tell my aide at the desk to take a message on the other calls ... And tell her to have Cook fire up the grill for a bar-b-q ... We'll be cooking up some crow and shipping it to our friends in G.B. and the EU ..."
Sec. Rice: Yes, Mr. President, and how about some goat for their guests?
Prez: Cold, Condi ... Very cold ... he-he-he ...
Then Hitler is also on the li
July 14, 2007 - 20:06 ET by general companyThen Hitler is also on the list. Do they want to pretend that WWII ever existed.?
Exactly, how can you have a conversation about WWII with out Churchill? Are they suggesting it should be forgotten? Scary, wow. Amanutjob must be getting his message circulated.
Enjoy the bbq and beer this
July 14, 2007 - 20:25 ET by RESTLESS 1Enjoy the bbq and beer this summer guys. Because when the muslims come a knockin' it is going to be time to take up arms and get to work. There apparently aren't enough people in the world who want to do anyting about the terror threat or who take it seriously enough to help ensure no more attacks happen in the west. The left everywhere just gets loonier and loonier with every passing second, and they are surely beckoning their own demise.
churchill
July 14, 2007 - 20:19 ET by Captain RepusThis absolute madness is just another nail in coffin of what we in the West call civilazation. The cancer of secular progressivism and insane political correctness is sweeping Europe and the US is only marginally behind. There is little or no hope of stopping this cancer short of a full scale world war which has historically brought out a new generation of hero's and patriots. It is time for a herd thinning of he-she feminists, metrosexual men and sex-in-the-city teens. Where is John Wayne, Susan Hayward and the Fonz when we need them.
Yes, this is madness. The B
July 14, 2007 - 20:37 ET by dahliatraversYes, this is madness. The Bush/Hitler comparisons are absurd. Comparing islamofacism to the Third Reich, however, is chillingly close to the mark, at least in terms of goals and methods, if not capabilities. Yet if we remove the man who led the fight against Nazi Germany from history books, would we not lose valuable information and a critical template of leadership just when we might need them again?
Churchill
July 14, 2007 - 21:01 ET by Captain RepusIf Winston had found a more creative use for his cigars than smoking them, recent history has proven that he would probably be revered instead of 'erased' from history.
Slow Train Coming
July 14, 2007 - 22:06 ET by Kirk TurnerWatch Britain. It is the laboratory where experiments on our future are being held. They have "disappeared" Churchill! This is what happens when curriculum is driven by ideology, not utility. As Lenin said, " Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted." These liberal imbeciles really believe that simply saying something makes it so. Extrapolate that to "if they allow it in the curriculum, it is so."
It is high time for our activism, our history, and our values to be asserted by us; no one in the media, the campuses, or the government will do it. It up to every child's parents to teach them the REAL history, not history edited by dimwit activist education majors or journalists who don't have enough intelligence to see leftist ideology for what it is--the most murderous form of government ever imagined by man.
The time has come to get educated on the menace that is facing us, and apply that education everywhere you can. Read all you can about the history of Socialism. Write letters to your local editor; post to blogs; complain to your representatives; be a nuisance. Your grandchildren's lives may depend on it.
Socialists are infamous for killing their own people--it happened in Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba, and tens of other ratholes of despair around the world. Socialism and related secular ideologies are responsible for over ONE HUNDRED MILLION death in the last century alone. Do we really want to go down that road? To quote Mark Steyn, "America is a utopia that works." The Socialist utopia has never worked and never will. It is simply a system of totalitarian governmental control whereby the elites seize permanent power over the people. Killing sprees always accompany socialist revolutions. Now the elites want it here. Do you really think that America will accept Socialism peacefully? Fight the power, and speak truth to it.
the business of teaching chil
July 15, 2007 - 14:30 ET by PKthe business of teaching children marxism, communism, etc in the streets did not seem to work to well.
i have worked with fellows who were brought up in east europe and went through the school systems there and subsequently made their way through the iron curtain to the united states (legally).
they have a total hatred for the communist system and for communists themselves. you talk to them and they start to shake, shout and swear.
also we have a number of "boat people" in a "little Saigon" in an area around Garden Grove Ca.
whenever a member of the current government of Viet Nam gets within a hundred miles of the area there's riots in the streets literally.
C
"Total madness", is
July 14, 2007 - 22:16 ET by SnowWhite"Total madness", is putting it mildly! This is the most unbelievable thing I've heard maybe in my whole life. I remember as a very small child listening to Winston Churchill on the radio during WWII. He was a hero to all of us, including me, even as young as I was. I can't imagine what my cousins in Britain are thinking about this. May God help us!
}}----> Ed Balls
July 14, 2007 - 22:20 ET by Cool ArrowChurchill — voted the greatest ever Briton — goes off the required lessons list, along with Hitler, Gandhi, Stalin and Martin Luther King.
So Brits will be studying the joy of jihad and how to curb your woman with a clitorectomy.
Societies deserve any government they will tolerate.
They'll be sorry when the s
July 14, 2007 - 23:06 ET by Dave RThey'll be sorry when the signs for London are being changed to read Londonistan.
We, of couse, are doing the exact same thing here in this country. My junior year in high school occurred in 1981. Even way back then, our U.S. history text book devoted all of three pages to WW II, and two of those were filled with pictures.
Western Society, and not just the formerly great U.K., is in seriously deep doo-doo.
BTW-I wonder if the fact that Winny's mother was American might have something to so with this idiocy.
Help Fred defeat the RINOs, along with the Hitllary-Obama Axis, & win the White House in '08.
Churchill
July 14, 2007 - 23:35 ET by Captain RepusIt seems like such a waste of time to change the history books when it is so easy to simply burn them.
I really feel that I live in
July 14, 2007 - 23:51 ET by BEGRUNTI really feel that I live in "bizzaro world" anymore. I never in my life thought that I would see what I'm seeing now. When I was born, 1961, we had the utmost respect for WW2 vets, and had many living in our neighborhood. I would listen, awe struck at the stories they would tell. I was lucky enough to have a father in law, who never spoke of his experiences to his own family, but opened up to me, I was honored. He won both the Silver, and Bronze Star for bravery during the war. I was honored to know him. Now they are taking history, and trying to erase it. WTF???? I don't get it. Churchill??? Again, WTF???? Like I said, BIZZARO world. I feel like it is a nightmare that I will wake up from.....PLEASE!!!!!!
}}----> Bizzaro BEGRUNT
July 15, 2007 - 00:07 ET by Cool ArrowYou wouldn't want to offend muslims by implying their god was vanquished by a cigar chomping defender of human rights, would you?
I'm waiting for FDR and JFK to be dropped from our history books.
History
July 15, 2007 - 03:56 ET by AgnosticI just completed a history course in college that was supposed to cover from the Reformation to 2000. The only thing covered about FDR was the social programs and the only covered about JFK was the tragedy of his death. Reagan was ignored, Clinton was covered as only as President always "under fire" and Vietnam was only covered as a way of comparing it to our current WOT. The worst was an attempt by the PHD holding history teacher to show how America today is just like Imperial Britain and we can never win in the Middle East beacuse they failed to do so in any lasting and substantial manner.
Agnostic,That's a pretty cree
July 15, 2007 - 08:27 ET by BlondeAgnostic,
That's a pretty creepy description of a history class.
Revisionist history indeed.
I have to ask, was there any attempt by the students to challenge the professor's obvious bias?
History
July 15, 2007 - 03:56 ET by Agnosticdup.
Possibly the greatest man o
July 15, 2007 - 04:32 ET by Jack BauerPossibly the greatest man of the 20th Century, Sir Winston Churchill wrote these words in the last year of the 19th Century.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Sure, Sir Winston has nothing to say of relevance 108 years later.
And by the way, this is before the so-called "radical" influences of the Wahabbist sect. These references are to those we we keep being told are "moderate" Muslims.
Brilliant Jack
July 15, 2007 - 11:33 ET by acumenBrilliant........and prophetic.
Isn't there a well known sa
July 15, 2007 - 06:02 ET by DontFeedTheTrollsIsn't there a well known saying about this type thinking?
Something like "Those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it"?
What is it about the left that makes them so blind?
D
I don't support our liberals or their mission.
George Orwell predicted it
July 15, 2007 - 11:26 ET by c5thenThe revisionist history that the liberals want to teach is to make their indoctrination of the youth easier. Learning about Churchill would expose the imperssionable youth to the ideas that there is absolute good and evil, that there are things worth fighting and dying for, and that there is such a thing as individual responsibility. That would totally undermine their liberal ideology.
The day that "politician" became a career choice is the day we started losing the Republic