Having watched the first two episodes (and putting my tinfoil hat on), I wanted to share some thoughts and suppositions. The easiest way to do this is to add my comments to the Wikipedia article on Pathé News, plus those of an anti-conspiracy theory "devil's advocate."
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Note: The point, IMO, of both this BBC Pathé series and general British high school history education regarding the two World Wars, is that the War generations - your parents/grandparents/great grandparents - were obviously propagandised. We can all see that now and in high school we are taught this unequivocally. Why? So that there is a clear distinction made between then and now, i.e. if they were being propagandised then, in order to fight the war, it must mean that we are not being propagandised now. After all, do you see anything like this on your streets these days?
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Source (unless otherwise stated): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path%C3%A9_News
pdgalles: So who was Charles Pathé?British Pathé is one of the oldest names in the motion picture industry. Its roots lie in 1890s Paris when the company was founded as Société Pathé Frères (Pathé Brothers Company) by Charles Pathé who pioneered the development of the moving image. Charles Pathé was a dynamic personality who was directly responsible for the rapid growth of the young motion picture industry and the discovery of many of its major artists.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Path%C3%A9The son of a butcher shop owner, Charles Pathé was born at Chevry-Cossigny, in the Seine-et-Marne département of France. In 1894, together with his brother Émile, he formed Pathé Records. Two years later they created the Société Pathé Frères to enter the motion picture production and distribution business. Both companies would become a dominant international force in their respective industries.
In 1929, Charles Pathé sold out his interest in the businesses and retired to Monaco where he died in 1957.
Devil's advocate: Société Pathé Frères was founded by entrepreneurs, individuals, and therefore was not founded by a government agency. After all, Charles Pathé's father was just a butcher shop owner! Comprendre?
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path%C3%A9[Pathé] first expanded to London in 1902 where they set up production facilities and a chain of movie theaters.
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In 1908, Pathé invented the newsreel that was shown in theaters prior to the feature film.
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By 1909, Pathé had built more than 200 movie theaters in France and Belgium and by the following year they had facilities in Madrid, Moscow, Rome and New York City plus Australia and Japan.
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Prior to the outbreak of World War I, Pathé dominated Europe's market in motion picture cameras and projectors. It has been estimated that at one time, 60 percent of all films were shot with Pathé equipment.
Devil's advocate: So Pathé began to broadcast their newsreels in the UK (and across Europe) just years prior to the outbreak of WWI. So what? They were successful in France and chose to expand - pure coincidence of timing and certainly no reason to imagine the newsreels began in 1910 with the goal of broadcasting propaganda in order to ready the British public for war.
Devil's advocate: So they got lucky occasionally, who doesn't? The cameraman just happened to be at the perfect location to capture the tragic death of suffragette Emily Davison and the featuring of this footage in the newsreels just happened to give promotion to the campaign for women's suffrage, a struggle which had by that time occupied over 40 years of public discourse*. Just like the civil rights movement, these things naturally take time. A lot of time.Even though during the early days the camera shots were taken from a stationary position, the Pathé newsreels captured events such as the suffragette Emily Davison being killed when she threw herself under the King’s Horse at the 1913 Derby.
*Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_ ... ed_Kingdom
Devil's advocate: It's not as if she was a well-known, media-created "terrorist" anyway!
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_DavisonEmily Davison (11 October 1872 – 8 June 1913) was a militant women's suffrage activist.
She was arrested and imprisoned for various offences nine times, including a violent attack on a man she mistook for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George. She went on hunger strike in Strangeways Prison and was force-fed. She attempted suicide twice while in Strangeways by throwing herself down an iron staircase. As a result she suffered severe head and spinal damage, causing discomfort for the rest of her life.
On 2 April 1911, the night of the 1911 census, Davison hid in a cupboard in the Palace of Westminster overnight so that on the census form she could legitimately give her place of residence that night as the "House of Commons". The 1911 census documents that were uncovered state that Emily Davison was found 'hiding in the crypt' in the Houses of Parliament. In 1999 a plaque to commemorate the event was set in place by Tony Benn MP.
In 1913, she planted a bomb at Lloyd George's newly built house in Surrey, damaging it severely.
Devil's advocate: {speechless}...
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_DavisonDavison's purpose in attending the Derby of 4 June 1913 is unclear. Much has been made of the fact that she purchased a return rail ticket and a ticket to a suffragette dance later that day, suggesting that martyrdom was not her intention.
Devil's advocate: Wait, you mean Emily Davison was just like the London 7/7 bombers?
Source: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ex ... ide-550351The London bombers may have been duped into killing themselves so their secrets stayed hidden.
Police and MI5 are probing if the four men were told by their al-Qaeda controller they had time to escape after setting off timers. Instead, the devices exploded immediately.
A security source said: "If the bombers lived and were caught they'd probably have cracked. Would their masters have allowed that to happen? We think not."
The evidence is compelling: The terrorists bought return rail tickets, and pay and display car park tickets, before boarding _ a train at Luton for London. None of the men was heard to cry "Allah Akhbar!" - "God is great" - usually screamed by suicide bombers as they detonate their bomb.