Snow Nepotism

Dan Snow is an example of why nepotism ruins everything. I could use John Peel's son as an example, or even Giles Martin, but the Snow case involves the deeper, more sinister side of nepotism in British society. Dan Snow has carved out a media career as a historian, presenting somewhat banal shows on everything from the loss of HMS Hood to the Battle of Waterloo. A reading of Wikipedia could fill in any gaps opened up by not watching his shows. A recent discovery of fresh bones at Waterloo elicited emotion from him, and rightly so, right? It is horrendous how working class people are abused in industry and warfare by an evil 'elite' which views them as nothing but work-machines from which profit can be extracted. What Snow didn't identify, despite having it all laid it before him, was the true evil at work here. Like somebody failing in a join-the-dots contest, he was blind to the real message. Yes, he acknowledges how dead and wounded soldiers were treated with no respect back then (which isn't exactly what the working people wanted). Bodies used up to be tossed into mass graves. He even, with genuine sadness, laments that later on industry dug up the bones of these working class people to consume in the burgeoning sugar industry. However, he stops short of the simple expression which could highlight what has really be going on with human history since at least the 16th century; a sad state of affairs which transcends Waterloo and modern military history. The fact that, even in death, the ruling class could not leave these working class people alone. They were forced to become workers, made into wage-slaves on threat of death, forced into the army by conscription or starvation and when they gave their lives in extremely violent and brutal ways, the state, the capitalists could still not leave them alone! Their bones were dug up and shipped unceremoniously back to Britain. What better metaphor for our system? You will work for us, you will die for us, and in death we will extract what value we can from your corpse. All magic is dispensed with. Why pick on Snow? Didn't he show emotion? Doesn't he bring awareness to this horrible issue? Well, not quite. He's a white-washer. One of the disingenuous people of history to whom the great lie and its continuance, with all related suffering, can be attributed. He's an insult to true historians. He has no interest in revealing to you what actually has gone on since the Enclosures or the Industrial Revolution. That would be dangerous talk. His son would never get into Oxford, even with the right accent.

Lions led by donkeys

"Lions led by donkeys" is a phrase popularly used to describe the British infantry of the First World War and to blame the generals who led them. The contention is that the brave soldiers (lions) were sent to their deaths by incompetent and indifferent leaders (donkeys).

Sounds familiar? Well, it turns out that the idea of bloodthirsty and incompetent generals doesn't quite vibe with Mr Snow, not once he found out his great grandfather was one such criminal of the ruling class, the aptly named Sir Thomas D'Oyly Snow. At first, he wrote in The Guardian that he found it "quite jarring". This couldn't last. Dan Snow has a dynasty to uphold, after all. His father, his mother, his cousin all had media careers. The famous Jon Snow is his first cousin once removed. This is nepotism, par for the course for British society. Yes he is a passable TV presenter (at best) and like anyone with half an education can read off a text about a subject. Would he be all over TV and YouTube if he wasn't related to those other Snows? Highly doubtful. How does this relate? Legitimacy. Dan Snow probably couldn't sleep at night, knowing full well that his great grandfather was a callous scumbag. A man who complained that the 46th Division at the Somme showed a "Lack of offensive spirit". For those of you not aware of how these swines refer to the human instinct for survival, it is always that phrase. Offensive spirit? You try being shot at by artillery and rifles. You try it. Of course they kept their heads down when ordered to repeated, futile attacks. Dan Snow makes excuses, trying to explain to those of us not blessed with an Oxbridge education that "well, he wasn't paid to do that". No? What exactly is a British Army general, at the height of the Imperial age, paid to do, if not make sure profits continue to flow to landlords and arms companies? Surely his job is to maintain the attacks on the working class, otherwise his esteemed and undeserved position as their commander would be in jeopardy. Indeed, the whole rotten system falls apart without the military discipline of the Prussian schooling system, the factory system, the wage-work system and most of all, the threat of extreme violence and death if you step out of line and don't do what your 'betters' order you to do. The ruling class viewed the working class differently back then. They were the real enemy, not the French or the Germans. The ruling class were scared to death by a workers' revolution. Snow's grandfather epitomises this ruling class in the figure of a 6 foot 4 inch moustachioed buffoon. A chateau general. The enemy. The men we should be blaming for all this.

Not content with excusing his bloodthirsty maniac of an ancestor, Snow now feels he must add his voice to the growing chorus of Conservative, white, British, Christian men who now claim, falsely, that this view of the First World War is false. Alan Clark (surprise surprise, a Conservative MP who went to Oxford) claimed, with a smug look, that he invented the idea with a false conversation between two German General Staff officers. The late Richard Holmes (who presented Oliver Cromwell as one of the Greatest Britons?!), states that it's a lie, fabricated. Dan Snow has leapt onto this bandwagon so he can sleep at night. You see, the Allied generals were not incompetent buffoons at all! It was the men who showed a lack of offensive spirit. Dan Snow's entire identity is based on his family and the privilege it has given him. He now feels safe. It was all made up. Sir Thomas D'Oyly Snow was a nice guy actually, and thoroughly competent.

So is it all made up? Hardly. The phrase predates the First World War, which is inconvenient and unfortunate for Alan Clark, Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart (oh! another Cambridge man) and most of all John Terraine, yet another BBC-Oxbridge man. The Russians referred to the British officers as donkeys or asses in the Crimean War. The phrase may even go all the way back to Plutarch. It's been centuries since the British working man wasn't led by a donkey or an ass. The asses are now so out of touch as to be completely irrelevant. They know this. So the white-washing continues. Dan Snow will continue in his ignorant mediocrity. Sons of sons will keep attending Eton, Oxford and Cambridge. They'll keep getting all the lucrative positions at the BBC in radio or TV. And they'll keep white-washing. Snow even said of his own daughter, in relation to an entirely different error he made regarding female Spitfire pilots:

She's going to learn that I lied to her and she's going to find out that women weren't allowed to do active front-line service so I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Will you indeed, or will you smugly and with convincing reverence redefine it all in your own way to make it seem as though everything was okay and the war was won because everyone knew their place, especially women? You lie to us all, Dan Snow. If you insist on remaining a presenter of history shows, please do some deeper reading. Please be open to criticising the system that produced you and gave you your immense advantages in life. Don't defend First World War generals. It makes you seem laughably out of touch and revisionist. But then that's the Oxbridge way, eh?

In June 2023 some rich people decided to go and gloat over the wreck of the Titanic. The rescue cost taxpayers millions - the same millions the US government won't spend on their own citizens' healthcare. Remember, my point holds: even in death, poor immigrants and working class people will not be left alone by the rich. They literally rob the graves of Titanic victims to raise captital for even more expeditions. They ignore risks and advice just so they can go and boast they saw the wreck. It's no coincidence that this happened just weeks after exellent high resolution images of the wreck were made public. You see, now that us plebs can view the Titanic wreck in detail, they had nothing over us.