Our vision is 20/20 and we can see the perfidy clearly, and partly by its effect. It is since compounded by the fact that government schooling has left out all the things Jacquerie is teaching us (thanks Jacquerie for your noble work).
I was once talking to my great aunt who was in her twenties when all this was taking place(she was born in 1910). As she explained what happened then, the thought came to me that ‘socialism’ was the ‘global warming’ of her day. Any elite or educated person saw it as the obvious answer. The smart set bought it all. There wasn’t any alternative information outlet and the gatekeepers didn’t let it out. The pressure was there to ‘just do something, anything.’
There wasn’t an Internet, no FReerepublic or Drudge Report etc. We three and many others remember clearly what it was like to have only 3 big networks - that was all the news. If the newspapers didn’t print it it didn’t happen.
At that vulnerable time all this came down. We got FDR as President, a Great Depression and the smart set peddling socialism - which, by the way, works perfectly for the rich/powerful. Perhaps, being charitable, a little socialism was better than a lot. Clearly, we’ve piled on a whole lot more government since then. The 1960s and our very own Nixon made things much worse.
One thing she said to a question my sister asked on Social Security was startling, ‘Nobody wanted Social Security. We knew it was no good, but they just passed it anyway’ was my aunts response. Sound familiar?
Yep, the big three networks and major newspapers before them shaped American opinion. Could there be a Tea Party without the internet? Not very likely.
I didn’t know one way or the other about Soc Sec lack of popularity. Good info.
My father was a Depression era teenager and WWII vet. The only, single time I heard him curse was in the 1960s when uncle Walter brought up FDR. Every other time FDR came up, he'd bite his lip, walk outdoors and I assume, mutter obscenities to himself.
As for FDR era judges, The Four Horsemen of Scotus stuck to the Constitution and stymied much of the New Deal. I forget which one was replaced with an FDR toady; its been downhill ever since.
I alternate between downright despair and weak hope for our country. We are without doubt witnessing a Great Awakening. The Tea Party movement has the statists worried, as they should be, for socialist edifices will soon come crashing down. The only question is what will replace them, tyranny or a new era of freedom? I am not hopeful.