12-7 And 9-11
By Michael P. Tremoglie (12/05/03)
The 1930’s were known as the Red Decade. It was an era when American culture and political thought were becoming increasingly leftist in orientation.
In the words of Eugene Lyons in his book The Red Decade:
"Never before --or since-- had all areas of American society been so deeply penetrated by a foreign nation and a foreign ideology. Never before had the country's thinking, official policies, education, art, and moral attitudes been so profoundly affected by the agents, sympathisers and unwitting puppets of a distant dictatorship."
Pearl Harbor changed that orientation.
After Pearl Harbor Americans became more patriotic, more religious, and more democratic after Pearl Harbor. The institutions of American culture were changed. Media, art, music all became more appreciative of American democracy and less appreciative of foreign “utopias.”
For the next two decades, American culture promoted the ideas of democracy, religion, equality, capitalism, and patriotism. The uniformed services were regarded with esteem. Capitalism was enjoyed and revered. The only bastions of leftist culture were in the very influential (albeit small) fields of art, literature, entertainment, journalism, government, and academia. However, unlike the 30’s, leftist philosophy was not the preeminent belief among Americans even though it may have been among some elites.
All that changed in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
Leftist/socialist/communist thought became the major philosophy, the zeitgeist as it were. It was represented sympathetically in movies, theater, television, art, books, and most importantly academia. These institutions promoted ideas that were antithetical to the American ethos. Uniform services were reviled. Capitalism was disdained.
The average American reverted to being skeptical about the American ideal and public opinion was receptive to the communist propaganda. After all, many soldiers in Viet Nam believed it was an “economic war.” Many citizens believed that it was only the “poor and the minorities who were being sent to Viet Nam” - a myth that to this day is being recited by such influential journalists as Chris Mathews and historians like Doris Kearns Goodwin.
We were told that Ho Chi Minh modeled his declaration from the Declaration of Independence. Americans serving in Viet Nam were given the analogy by the media of comparing Viet Nam to our own Revolutionary War. They were made to feel that we were the British and they the redcoats. The Communists were like the American colonists - patriots who only wanted freedom.
These anti-American feelings precipitated a purge of the government institutions like defense and intelligence in the post-Viet Nam era. Public opinion, disillusioned by Viet Nam and Watergate, and fueled by a liberal media, was ripe to begin dismantling intelligence because of the “revelations” of Cointelpro. These revelations of FBI spying on “civil rights” groups and leaders; clergy; and charitable organizations were portrayed by the media as fascism.
9-11 changed all that.
Since then, we have noticed a reverence for the uniform services. A reverence that has not existed since WWII. This reverence has been shared by and, in some instances implemented by, the artistic and literary community. American capitalism and military have a new appreciation as imperfect as they are.
Those in the media or on campus may question whether the flag should be displayed. However, this question would never have been considered before. They would have considered displaying a flag jingoistic.
It is only among some academicians, some government officials and the mainstream media that the anti-American status quo is retained. It is only among them that this transmogrification from loathing of American culture to an appreciation of what America provides them has not occurred.
Yet, this is a positive thing. It is positive because the public needs to know about: professors who proclaim that any group that can destroy the Pentagon is admirable; professors who proclaim that it is America who is responsible for the Taliban; CEO’s of media corporations who proclaim that they cannot issue a condemnation of terrorism because of their objectivity; government officials who prohibit patriotic displays; librarians who unctuously reprimand an employee for furnishing the FBI information about terrorists.
As long as the average American is aware of such anti-American fanaticism these people will be discredited. Ordinary America will now know these liberal elites are not altruists. They do not believe in democracy. They are demagogues. They are totalitarians. They are aristocrats.
The liberals are becoming increasingly marginalized as more is known about them. As ordinary Americans are learning about who is operating their cultural institutions and as they learn that they have not been told the truth, those institutions will change. As more and more Americans learn that educators do not want the pledge of allegiance recited because it somehow might make some students uncomfortable, Americans might ask themselves - is the prohibition of prayer in school really a constitutional issue or an attempt to bowdlerize religion from the culture? Are the proclamations by civil libertarians opposing military tribunals really a civil liberties issue or just fanaticism?
As more Americans hear and read mainstream media journalists describe as jingoistic Lee Greenwood singing “ I’m proud to be an American, God Bless the USA,” those journalists will be recognized as the as the sanctimonious, supercilious twits they are.
December 7th ended the Red Decade. September 11th will change American culture as well.
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