American extremists seek history re-write

By John Freeman on 9 October 2007

Who would have thought it? Web search engine giant Google rightly marked 50 years of spaceflight with a terrific Sputnik-decorated version of their logo last week, but now it seems right wing commentators in the US feel this is the start of a slippery descent into Communist takeover for the successful company.

In an article picked up by the Los Angeles Times, WorldNetDaily described the re-design as “celebrating communism“, blithely ignoring the fact that it was the ‘Communists’ who were the first into space and the Americans a measly second.

If America had got a satellite into orbit first, I’m sure Google would have put that on the logo, and I bet that come 21 July 2009 they may well do something to mark the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing (that was by Americans, in case anyone from WorldNetDaily ever reads this).

Sadly, it seems the criticism is simply part of a much wider agenda on the part of some narrow minded factions within the US who seem hell-bent on trying to ensure Americans only think about certain things and return to the kind of blinkered isolationism it revelled in before the First World War. It was a naive view then, and highly dangerous now.

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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.