Stupidity and Hope on YouTube

I'm finishing up the text for my book Guerrilla Tactics of the American Civil War and while eating lunch today I decided to rewatch the chapter on Nathan Bedford Forrest in the excellent series The Civil War by Ken Burns. Forrest was the best Confederate cavalry raider of that war and Shelby Foote, a historian interviewed in the series, has some interesting stuff to say about him.

After watching the segment on YouTube, I saw a link to another video about General Forrest so I clicked on it. It turned out to be a recruiting video for the Ku Klux Klan! Forrest was elected its first Grand Wizard shortly after the war but eventually distanced himself from the organization, saying it had become too lawless. That's putting it mildly.

I was really depressed to see this crap had gotten 185,000 views, so to scrub the filth from my eyes I watched will.i.am's hokey but heartfelt video "Yes We Can" about Obama. You know how many views that's gotten?

Fourteen million.

I felt better after that.