Sunday, April 25, 2010

Students in the Military

I'm grading final essays right now and the one that really scared me was written by a student who is a cadet in the US Military. The topic of the essay is the Spanish-American war. The student in question paid no attention to anything we discussed in class and decided to regale me with the most egregious propaganda I have ever encountered. God, how are these poor kids brainwashed!

According to the student, the US entrance into the war between Cuba and Spain was beneficial to everybody. It was good for the Cubans because the US "helped" them gained independence. Of course, after the independence was gained, the US never left but it was simply because it was so obvious that the Cubans werent capable of running their own country. It was beneficial for Spain as well because the US helped to alleviate their burden of having to run a country located so far from Spain. Sadly, the Spanish people didn't recognize immediately that the US was only trying to help them by entering into a war with them. And that happened because the Spanish weren't very smart and didn't know what was good for them. I kid you not, all this was written by the student completely in earnest.

As to the historical facts that contradict his brainwashed world-view, he simply skips them. USS Maine somehow misteriously exploded all by itself. The Monroe Doctrine also mysteriously applies to the case of Spain's colonies, the colonies this country had possessed for centuries before the Monroe Doctrine was adopted.

In short, the entire essay is an example of a completely unbelievable instance of propaganda that has no interest in common sense, historic reality, and logic. It saddens me to think that everything we discussed in class during the semester, everything we read, everything we saw made no impression on this kid whatsoever. At the end of the course, he still reproduces the same ideological rubbish that he was fed by the people interested in sending him to die in the name of economic interests that are incomprehensible to him.

1 comment:

Izgad said...

Saying that the Spanish-American War was good for Cuba and Spain is a bit over the top. In general, though, I really like the military students I get, they actually do their work.