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Republicans Hop In The DeLorean and Take America Back To The 1950s
A couple of months into Barack Obama’s presidency, Republicans and teabaggers began chanting they wanted to take the country back. They did not say exactly how far back in time they intended to take the country, but there were indications they were thinking about the 1950s and in some instances, the 1930s. There were plenty of articles mocking teabaggers for wanting to go back to the Dark Ages, and although there are Christian Reconstructionists who would like to revert to Mosaic Law, the consensus is that most conservatives yearn for the fifties. Now that Republicans are in power in the House and many governors’ mansions, there is little doubt that America is indeed being legislated back to 1950 and it is a disaster for anyone who is not a wealthy, white Christian male.
The first clue that conservatives were serious about going back to the 50s was the Texas Board of Education textbook committee whose revisionist history dictated that the civil rights struggle never happened, the separation of church and state is false, Joe McCarthy was a heroic figure, and Thomas Jefferson was not an enlightenment figure of prominence. Apparently the Texas group decided to adopt history to fit America’s reversion to the fifties. Now Americans are witnessing conservative legislators rewriting laws that mirror 1950-era America to literally take the country back in time.
Joe McCarthy terrorized Americans with investigations of Communists and the Red Scare, and along the way ruined countless lives with accusations and what amounts to a government witch-hunt. McCarthy has been resurrected in the person of Rep. Peter King (R-NY) who is conducting his own House witch hunt into radicalized Islam, and like McCarthy, King is casting a wide net over all Muslims based on the word of a couple of witnesses. In McCarthy’s era, a single accusation could land a person on a black list and King is going further by labeling Islam and its adherents as radical terrorists. They are different groups, but the anti-American accusations are identical.
In states under Republican control, minorities and low-income Americans are being singled out for voter intimidation and unrealistic Jim Crow-type laws because they tend to vote for Democratic candidates. Through subterfuge, lies, and dirty tactics Republicans defunded and ended Acorn because newly registered and minority voters tend to support Democratic candidates and causes. Some states in the South are attempting to require citizenship papers, property tax bills, and literacy tests before a person is allowed to vote. In some states, college students are not allowed to vote unless they can prove permanent residency if they attend school in a state they do not live in. The theme is clear; it is suppression of Democratic voters and it is being manifested in the union-busting schemes in Wisconsin and other Republican controlled states with the assistance of Fox News and the Koch brothers.
In both houses of Congress, Republicans consistently vote against equal pay for women and there is a movement to put women out of the workplace and back in the kitchen. Women have made progress, but they still only earn 75 cents on the dollar that a man earns for the same job. Republicans are also on a campaign to deny a woman’s choice with their own reproductive rights. Supreme Court Justice Scalia proffered the opinion that women do not enjoy equal rights under the law as outlined in the 14TH Amendment. The progress the feminist movement worked so diligently for is being rejected in favor of the 1950s when women were expected to stay home, give birth, and clean a man’s chamber pot.
In the 1950s, it was against the law to be a homosexual and many states had laws forbidding gay people the right to work. Although Congress repealed the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law, gays are under attack from opponents of same-sex marriage, and in some states, legislators and Christian groups are making plans to criminalize homosexual activities. In some Southern states there are movements to restrict gays from teaching or interacting with children at the behest of Christian Conservatives like Virginia’s attorney general.
It is absolutely shameful that in 2011 Republicans are passing legislation to send the country back nearly 60 years and the level of support the “reversionists” have received is remarkable. In the 50s, the law favored white Christian males, and Republicans are heading in that direction by targeting gays, women, non-Christians, and minorities to deny their equal rights. However, this is not a new line of thought in America or a resurrected movement because it never went away based on the age and gender of teabaggers and neo-con leaders. They are generally older white males who claim to be Christians and are clinging to an era when they ruled America. Women, minorities, gays, and non-Christians were subservient 60 years ago and did not enjoy the same rights as white males.
Younger conservatives who did not live through the fifties support returning to white male-dominated America because they are opportunists and supremacists. There is still a belief that America is white, Christian and male-oriented. The belief is similar to Nazi Germany and their twisted ideology that the Aryan race was superior. The mystery is why women, gays, poor, or minority Americans support Republican laws and ideology that subjects them to subservient roles in America. Many pundits have often questioned the intelligence level of Americans who vote and support policies that are against their own self-interest, but there is no reasonable answer. It is interesting that conservatives long to return to the 1950s in all things except infrastructure improvements and the tax rate. The wealthiest Americans in the fifties paid over 90% in income taxes and the country prospered to become the great nation it once was.
America’s finest days are behind us if we allow Republicans to turn back the clock on freedom, equality, and civil rights. Older white males desiring to return to the 50s belie the “greatest generation” label they have bestowed on themselves, and if the United States is going to survive and compete in the global community, it has to progress beyond 1950; the country was doing that until a Black man was elected president. Perhaps the old white men who want to regress to the days of McCarthyism, subservient minorities and women, and white-only elections see their dominance waning and it frightens them.
The America Republicans claim was exceptional perished and progressed into the 21ST Century with the rest of the world, but progress in intolerable to conservatives. They are vindictive, power hungry extremists, who are like wounded animals losing control of the country, and instead of moving forward with the rest of the world, are destroying America for a fallacious belief that white males are superior and deserve to rule the world. If they want to revert back to the fifties they should do so in their own homes, but everyone who is not a white male should be allowed to decide for themselves which era they want to live. The one thing old white males will not allow is for people to make their own decisions, and if it takes legislating America back to the 1950s, they will continue until America is irrelevant. It turns out that the greatest generation of white Christian males is nothing more than America’s shame.
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10 Responses to Republicans Hop In The DeLorean and Take America Back To The 1950s
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Nefti17
Mar. 14th, 2011 at 12:28 pm
THEY CANNOT GET AWAY WITH THIS. But they just may. THE PEOPLE..THE CIVILIZED PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY WILL NOT ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN NOW. THE RIGHT WING HAS GONE COMPLETELY OUT OF THEIR MINDS! All over a black president. Why their constituents aren’t screaming bloody murder at this point is completely beyond me. THEY ARE NOT DOING THE PEOPLES WISH..THEY ARE ACCOMODATING THE KOCH BROTHERS..KKK..AND ALL THE REST OF THE WHITE SUPREMIST ORGANIZATIONS..MCCONEL KEPT SAYING..THE JOB IS TO MAKE SURE OBAMA DOES NOT WIN AGAIN..if you think JKF was an accident ..if you think MLK was an accident ..you are wrong. We all know the right had something to do with that. Every good man who has tried to do right by the people of this country have been assasinated..by those on the right. From Lincoln to the Kennedys to MLK. I would leave this country if I were Obama..because they are and will try to kill him too. To think not..is to be completely naive. These guys are out to kill alot of us…the Right Wing has become the Reich. Plain and simple.
elemenohpee
Mar. 14th, 2011 at 12:38 pm
I have fond memories of the 50′s. Block parties, sock hops, the Platters, Elvis, my big brother teaching me how to dance the bop.
The 50′s look good through a child’s eyes. Then I grew up and reality set in.
Reynardine
Mar. 14th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
I am quite old enough to remember the ’50′s, and no, even mean old white Palin-pantyliner-sniffing men won’t get them back. Unions and the New Deal won them what they had then: the eight- hour day, the five- day week, electricity in every home, a tax structure that supported highways and schools, a tariff structure that kept production on shore, an earning capacity that enabled them to own homes and cars, keep mommies at home with shiny gadgets and nice clothes, get braces and camp for the kids, and send them off to at least a state college. Those days won’t come back. Only the illusion might return – by making certain the “others” are more disenfranchised than they are – but in the end, all are likely to find equality in misery.
Rev. Ron Willis Ed. D
Mar. 14th, 2011 at 2:21 pm
I’m 70 and came of age in the 50′s and was and still am very happy the 60′s came along and with them the washing away of most of the repression and backwardness the 50′s represented. In 1959 I attended my first fund raising fock concert to raise money for the defense fund for Pete Seger who was in jail for refusing to testify before the House UnAmerican Committee.Seger was as he is now, a peace loving American. Those Republicans and Tea Baggers who desire taking us back there did not live during that period and have no idea as to what is was like and why we wanted so much to leave it and get on with “being all we could be” with out having Big Bro and Sis deciding just what it was we could be.
Reynardine
Mar. 14th, 2011 at 3:30 pm
In fact, even those for whom the good times seemed to be rolling back then were required to pay with a crushing conformity, but meanwhile, the “good times” themselves were setting up suckered America for future slaughter: public transportation was being dismantled at the behest of the oil companies at the same time as small businesses were being gobbled up or driven under by large corporations, traditional communities were being dismantled by a deliberate policy of corporate transfers every two years, and family farmlands were being paved over by the resulting Levittowns. An old classic, “The Organization Man” described this process even as it was occurring, but I think few people expected the punchline: the corporatocracy, having demanded complete allegience, gave none back, but just offshored, leaving everyone, but especially “the little people” high and dry.
Shiva (Moderator)
Mar. 14th, 2011 at 6:20 pm
what I’m not sure about is the Republicans are trying to get rid of Democratic voters, but along the way losing their own voters through oppression. The religious nuts may think what they want is fine until they get it. And then they’re not going to like it at all when they see how the rest of the world lives. The Republicans are trying to put this country in a jail.
allen
Mar. 14th, 2011 at 9:11 pm
i agree republicans are taking the country back… i’m not quite so sure the ’50′s is the era tho …. i’m thinking more like the gilded age of 1870′s thru approx 1910
the ’50′s by and large, leaving social issues aside (like reproductive rights for women, gays etc…)(not saying these are huge important issues, only leave it out of the equation for sake of economic comparison)
GM was the country’s largest employer, was a union company that paid a better than living wage … NOW WAL-MART
uhhh Wal MArt not quite GM of the ’50′s
due to the large percentage of unionized workers in the ’50′s most households were headed by one male breadwinner… only the elite 5% or 1% can do that today
also the large percentage of unionized workers in the ’50′s helped raise the floor for all workers in the economy (see Thom Hartmans excellent book)
the republican party of the ’50′s had by and large accepted the victories of the New Deal, even Eisenhower. Not like the present day republican party.
the ’50′s represented the solid beginning of the American middle class that could afford their own home on one workers salary and raise 2 or more children, send them to college and retire with a solid pension provided by the employer
No, sorry to cut this short but i think the era is more like the late 19th century early 20th century
read Nell Irvin Painter’s “standing at armageddon” to get a real education on America’s working class during this period.
Cal Wardman
Mar. 27th, 2011 at 9:08 pm
I am 78 and I remember the late 40′s and the 50′s very fondly. It TRULY WAS A SIMPLER TIME. A time when everyone went to church on Sunday and never questioned why. A time when neighbors truly were neighbors and we had block parties. Our children played in the streets without having to worry about some speed demon or doper running over them. The automobile of that era was built of good old American steel with a full frame under it. No we did not have air conditioning or power steering until the mid 50′s. I’d go back to that era in a minute.
Leostringer
Apr. 5th, 2011 at 9:18 am
The problem with the GOP+Tea desire to travel back in time to the 1950′s is that, The 1950′s (as we knew them via experience or social history) would have never happened.
The people of the late 20′s would have had NO alternative party
NO democartic leaders ,no FDR no Eleanore R. ,No New Deal
etc.. Nothing to rescue them from the depression era world that 2 decades of endless Tax cuts acted as powder keg & spark provided via bankers all a gush in love with Margin 10% stock purchase speculation.
In a GOP only USA would cardboard box cities still fill with the desperate souls all scattered throughout our locale /national parks ?
Would America have had the strength to outlast our adversaries
in WW2 ? would we have ever joined the fight ?
Who Knows !
One thing is certain, the Rise of the middle class that was such a big part of what made 50′s America so appealing would have never had occurred.
Now I honestly fear that unless 75% or so of the USA’s Voting public awake from their slumber to place the GOP into a party representing only 2-3% of the total population ,
Then I fear we will all experience a Dreary USA A crumbling world of mostly failure & despair.
An Ugly /unfriendly place where the top 2% simply buy all the laws creating an endless stream of $$$ opportunities (for themselves) until either the other 97-98% mass revolt or simply migrate away. Fading from history into people of other nations offering greater chances for a happy life & greater overall satisfaction.
Shiva (Moderator)
Apr. 5th, 2011 at 10:06 am
I say amen to that, well said