Well, Rick Santorum, everybody's favorite frothy mixture, came out a few days ago to explain how "America was a great country before 1965."
Now, in context, he chose 1965 because that was the year that Medicare and Medicaid were put in place. Funny how that was the same year that America passed the Voting Rights Act of (weird how that works) 1965, and Martin Luther King's march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery.
Yes, children, Sesame Street is brought to you today by the word "dog-whistle."
I suppose I could also bring up the Fair Housing Act of 1968, but flogging that horse won't make it run again, will it?
I mean, it's an easy speech to fisk, full of lies and misquotes, but, you know, on second thought, there's a whole line of horses lying there, and maybe one will be motivated to stagger a few steps.
Until 1965 and Griswold v. Connecticut, there were still parts of America where it was illegal for married couples to use contraceptives (of course, Frothy probably thinks that was a sign of America's decline).
Until 1963, it was still legal to pay women less than men for doing the same job (as opposed to sneaking it in, like they do now).
In 1964, the US passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, and in 1965, we began air raids in North Vietnam and Communist-controlled parts of the South; on March 8, the first American combat troops arrived in country (I think my father began his first tour there two years later).
Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965, but I have no evidence that Santorum would admit to supporting it.
Leslie Ann Warren made her TV debut in Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella in 1965 (as if that wasn't bad enough, it cleared the way for her to co-star in the Christopher Atkins disco vehicle A Night in Heaven almost 2 decades later, and that is unforgiveable).
At the Newport Folk Festival in July 1965, Bob Dylan went electric, which many saw as the death of folk music (others accept that it had already died a horrible death three years earlier when Peter, Paul and Mary recorded Lemon Tree).
And Lyndon Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 in October, which prevented the US from using racial quotas to determine immigration policy; maybe that was what whipped Santorum into a froth.
In general, I'm having a hard time seeing what was so wonderful about America before 1965. Unless you were a white male.
Like Rick Santorum.
This is the anonymous Charlene!!
ReplyDeleteLast week I read a report that stated several state legislatures had guys [I say guys not women because "most" women legislators would not speak to this] trying to get all support of Planned Parenthood clinics stopped, did not believe their providing assistance in planning pregnancy was a good idea! So, for them, no birth control, no abortion even for pregnancy from violent rape would be supported. These guys don't want to support women in any of this birthing stuff except the fucking of course.
There are living breathing procreating people in this country who believe American was a great country until that pesky Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation.
Please. Preserve what was fought and died for. Forward not backward.
Yes, he's speaking in code, and yes, his exact audience is the same 65+ demographic that watches Fox religiously and shows up at the polls reliably. Bonus points appealing to the younger boomers whose warm, fuzzy memories of pre-1965 America are like faded photographs). Additional points for tempting GenX-ers who feel cheated that they came along a little too late and missed the "peace and prosperity" of the post-WWII economic boom. Nostalgia is huge these days.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm saying is that there's a fairly large audience whose dog-ears will perk up when he blows that whistle, so it's a damn good thing that he's a frothy mixture, which is as good a mnemonic as has ever been Google-bombed into the public vernacular. Memory is tricky and selective, and we need to resist being seduced by it. Even if there were (apparently) monkeys.
Nameless,
ReplyDeleteThese right-wingers are all about turning back the clock. I guess the only thing that's changed lately is just how far they want to turn it back. 1965? I'd say they would be much happier with 0965. Weg mit dem Early Modern Era!
There's much to be nostalgic about in the 50's and early 60's - even the late 40's. Just read Kerouac. Probably even in the 10th century for that matter although most of us wouldn't survive a week in the latter and I, at least couldn't live in this town and would be in jail for an illegal marriage.
ReplyDeleteBut sure, I miss radios that glowed in the dark and smelled like hot insulation and took half a minute to warm up and staying up late to hear Elvis on a homemade one-tube homemade thing cause my parents thought Elvis was evil I dream of being able to buy a brand new Indian Scout or a Porsche 356 and I miss my Austin Healy and hanging out at Skip's Fiesta drive-in with girls in pony tails and rock and roll road houses I was just a little bit too young for, but that's all because I miss being young. Today's young would rather be boiled alive than live in the world I remember.
It's not a new phenomenon. The Bible is all about how we've sinned and wandered from the sacred path or righteousness and the cosmic parent will harm us if we don't return to doing what the patriarchs did and stop loving life. People will always buy those arguments.
But the Mid 60's was when the reaction began, when we got nostalgic for being able to say "there's a war on" and John Wayne and Martha Raye and Bob Hope wanted troops to entertain and so we made up a fake story about Vietnam ( rhymed with feet-ham if you supported the war ) and split the country into the halves it has today and we went to war in Laos and Cambodia and Central America and Granada and the right wing ascendency began, allowing lightweights like Sanatorium to pretend to sapience. Since 1965 we've been seeking wisdom from popular songs, the opinions of celebrities and leadership from ever more idiotic, antisocial and demented figures. Can you imagine Palin running against Kennedy, or even Nixon, for that matter.
ReplyDeleteWhy stop at 1965? If going back to 1965 is so great then going back to 1865 should be utterly rapturous...
ReplyDeleteYES! Excuse me while I go down to the creek to beat my clothes with a rock, load up the cook stove with wood and start making tomorrow's bread!