Last Friday I offered to you a post which drew attention to parallels between the values expressed in the Thomas the Tank Engine series and the values espoused by the Nazi party in 1930s Germany. (See "Thomas the Tank Engine, Anti-Semitism, and the Sex Pistols" if you missed it.)
You will recall that, upon closer examination, Sir Topham Hatt (the Chairman of the Railway in the Thomas series) shares with adherents to Nazi ideology a deep distrust for self-expression ("degenerate art"!) and any non-"useful" (nonconformist or otherwise nonmajoritarian) behavior.
Is Thomas the Tank Engine actually anti-Semitic? No. But I hope you agreed that the values which this innocuous-seeming TV program expresses are worth considering -- and counteracting with other kinds of stories.
Well, it doesn't stop with Thomas, once you get thinking... If you've ever watched Teletubbies, enjoy:
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