Posts
since Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:04:17.
How Americans Are Indoctrinated
by Joachim Martillo (ThorsProvoni@aol.com)
In 1960 Poul Anderson published a science fiction novel entitled The High Crusade, whose tag line is, "The fantastic chronicle of a medieval English village transported to an alien world."
The book is quite typical of its time period and shows the ongoing normalization of Zionist power in the minds of Americans long before the June 1967 war brought Israel to the forefront of American consciousness.
The story is framed by the first contact of an Earth spaceship with a vast interstellar imperium.
The story begins when a starship of the Wersgor Empire carries off medieval villagers and minor local English nobles. After a series of battles, the English defeat the Wersgor and impose a feudal order on the former Wersgorixan domains.
The book concludes by returning to the outer first contact frame:
by Joachim Martillo (ThorsProvoni@aol.com)
In 1960 Poul Anderson published a science fiction novel entitled The High Crusade, whose tag line is, "The fantastic chronicle of a medieval English village transported to an alien world."
The book is quite typical of its time period and shows the ongoing normalization of Zionist power in the minds of Americans long before the June 1967 war brought Israel to the forefront of American consciousness.
The story is framed by the first contact of an Earth spaceship with a vast interstellar imperium.
The story begins when a starship of the Wersgor Empire carries off medieval villagers and minor local English nobles. After a series of battles, the English defeat the Wersgor and impose a feudal order on the former Wersgorixan domains.
The book concludes by returning to the outer first contact frame:
The [Earth spaceship] captain put the pages aside and hurried out to the main airlock entrance. the ramp had been let down, and a red-haired human giant was striding up to greet him. Fantastically clad, bearing a florid ornamental sword, he also carried a businesslike blast gun. Behind him an honor guard of riflemen in Lincoln green stood at attention. Over their heads fluttered a banner with the arms of a cadet branch of the great Hameward family.
The captain's hand was engulfed in a hairy ducal paw. The sociotech translated a distorted English: "At last! God be praised, they've finally learned to build spaceships on Old Earth! Welcome, good sir!"
"But why did you never find us ... er ... your grace?" stammered the captain. When it had been translated, the duke shrugged and answered:
"Oh, we searched. For generations every young knight went looking for Earth, unless he chose to look for the Holy Grail. But you know how bloody many suns there are. And even more toward the center of the galaxy -- where we encountered still other starfaring peoples. Commerce, exploration, war, everything drew us inward, away from this thinly starred spiral arm. You realize this is only a poor outlying province you've come upon. The King and the Pope dwell away off in the Seventh Heaven ... Finally the quest petered out. In past centuries, Old Earth has become little more than a tradition." His big face beamed. "But now it's all turned topsy-turvy. You found us! Most wonderful! Tell me at once, has the Holy Land been liberated from the paynim?"
"Well," said Captain Yeshu haLevy, who was a loyal citizen of the Israeli Empire, "yes."
"Too bad. I'd have loved a fresh crusade. Life's been dull since we conquered the Dragons ten years ago. They way, however, that the royal expeditions to the Sagittarian star clouds have turned up some very promising planets -- But see here! You must come over to the castle. I'll entertain you as best as I can, and outfit you for the trip to the King. That's tricky navigation, but I'll furnish you with an astrologer who knows the way."
"Now what did he say?" asked Captain haLevy, when the bass burble had stopped.
The sociotech explained.
Captain haLevy turned fire color. "No astrologer is going to touch my ship!"
The sociotech sighed. He'd have a lot of work to do in the coming years.
Of course, Anderson is trying to end his story with an amusing but cheap joke. Yet, he could have achieved similar results without glorifying Zionism. I am puzzled by the use of the name Yeshu. Is Anderson perhaps directing a joke within a joke towards the Jews that dominate the American punishing industry? Jews most typically use the name Yeshu in combination with haMamzer as in Yeshu haMamzer, which means Jesus the Bastard.
Jewish issues and -- after 1972 -- the Israeli-Palestinian conflict figure in some of Anderson's writings.
The Dromm mutants of Inside Straight (1955) may serve as a metaphor for modern Jews when a philosopher criticizes the Dromm race:
Jewish issues and -- after 1972 -- the Israeli-Palestinian conflict figure in some of Anderson's writings.
The Dromm mutants of Inside Straight (1955) may serve as a metaphor for modern Jews when a philosopher criticizes the Dromm race:
Unjust treatment is apt to produce paranoia in the victim. Your race has outlived its oppressors, but not the reflexes they built into your society. Your canalised nervous system make you incapable of regarding anyone else as anything but a dangerous enemy
Another Anderson story implicitly refers to the struggle over Palestine when Captain Ben-Yehuda forces a human colony to leave at gunpoint from a planet where the colonists had been living peacefully with the indigenous non-humans. When the humans try to explain that there is no conflict, the captain asks:
"Can you speak for your grandchildren and for their grandchildren, for generations which will grow more and more numerous and need more and more land? When my ancestors arrived in Palestine, they did not intend to dispossess the local Arabs and drive them into refugee camps - but in the end, that's what they did."
Obviously, Anderson had a far too generous understanding of Zionist objectives in colonizing Palestine.
