Johnny Tremain

While this is in our Netflix Queue, should I tell Stacy about the evils of watching the movie instead of reading the book? You may remember the book, Johnny Tremain. I read it in the 4th grade, you probably did too. Stacy is reading it in the 3rd so it is a little hard for her. I decided to read it to her. Reading it reminded me how much I enjoyed it when I was Stacy's age. (Stacy is also reading Meet George Washington. She just read to me the story about Washington and the cherry tree I mentioned last week. At least the book said that it was a story and probably not true. This is an improvement over what I was taught.) 

Johnny was an apprentice who hurt his hand. This made his job very difficult. He became acquainted with the Sons of Liberty—the heart of New England's Revolution. He also participated in the Boston Tea Party. 

What is interesting is Ester Forbes’ description of the Sons. She makes it very clear that they were not interested in compromise. She described a scene where the Sons beat up a Tory shopkeeper. She also describes their private meetings where they planned their revolt. The Sons understand that the people must be manipulated to achieve the goal of revolution. This got me to thinking. It is always true that most people are manipulated to achieve the desired ends of a small elite. The question is, will you be manipulated?  

While Johnny Tremain is a novel, it contains a lot of what one needs to know about this period in terms of the actions and motivations of the Sons of Liberty. They worked the mob and public opinion to achieve their elitist goals. I worded this last sentence in order to shock you. Yes they were elitists. The fact that you might agree with their goals does not change that. 

Will you be played like the people of Boston who were conned into becoming a mob during the Boston Tea Party? Or will you look at all the facts and come to your own conclusions? This is a theme I have been developing in the series on war. Will you think for yourself, or will you let Faux News, or for that matter MSNBC con you? 

While I hope you will agree with me on everything I write, as I resemble what  my mother often said of my father, "He may not always be right, but he is never wrong," my purpose here is to remind us all to think. Maybe you will give different weight to the various facts and come to a different conclusion than I do. Fox News, or MSNBC for that matter, have their place. Unless we all look behind the rhetoric we will be conned.