TOTAL LICENSING
CULTURE WARS!
CONFUSION!
By George Medina, Intercontinental Licensing
You can say that again! So let’s go back to the USA and look what has poverished South to settle in the expanding in-
been happening differently these last thirty or dustrial manufacturing cities and towns of the
• When Christopher Buckley, the son of so years. Midwest, but in general they were too busy with
the famous William F. Buckley, sage their hard economic climb to join political de-
and founder of the staunchly HISTORY bating societies. This was the furthest thought
conservative journal, The National Already long ago, when the Founding Fathers from their mind. They tended to vote the
Review endorses Obama – and politely of the Republic wrote the Constitution, they straight ticket, if they voted at all.
offers to resign – and discovers to his worried about whether 13 states from such
surprise that his resignation is accepted far-apart regions with different economies and The Great Depression and Dust Bowl crisis
and he finds himself unemployed. creeds could form a “more perfect union”. The united Americans in misery. WWI and WWII
• When young glamorous Sarah Federalists, especially Alexander Hamilton and united Americans in the triumph of victory.
Palin proudly declares a “culture war” James Madison, opted for “division of power”,
on “them”, the media, the intelligentsia reconciling discordant opinions through debate Except for the temporary turbulent side show
of the cities on the East and West Coasts, and compromise as glue for cohesion. of Senator McCarthy or the Communist trials
with the intent to inspire “us normal of Sacco & Vanzetti or the spy trials of Alger Hiss
folks” from the heartland of America, The citizens of these thirteen states lived dis- or the Rosenbergs, the average American is not
who live in small towns and villages tant from each other and they were reasonably very controversial. He, or now, sometimes she,
(paraphrasing by the author): rooted to their birth places. Thus, they could be was not too concerned.
• When George Bush, the hero of free assumed to run true to type and tradition.
enterprise capitalism goes to bed The governments changed from Democratic to
one night and wakes up the next However, soon there began a move to the Republican and back from time to time, based
morning as a re-cast Franklin Delano western frontier. Those migrating were a small on campaigns and leadership personalities. Rea-
Roosevelt, with a new type dictatorial minority of adventurous individuals and it took soned compromise and stability and individual
program of government ownership until 1829, when Tennessee’s General Andrew prosperity, are the goals of John Q. Public.
(Socialism?) to save the country from Jackson, arrived at the presidency with his guns
“defeat by the forces of Wall and “Western Ways”, before real conflict of Americans seemed curiously bland, disinter-
Street greed”. opinion and mores developed. ested in politics or big philosophical questions.
• When the words “shock and awe”, David Riesman wrote about “suburban sadness”.
previously used to describe a successful The next big battle of opinions led to the Civil William White about the “organization man”. C.
Iraq invasion, suddenly mean home War, more properly named by the South as Wright Mills, in 1953: “Americans are inaction-
foreclosures by the thousands. “The War Between the States”. This was forc- ary, they are out of it”.
ibly settled with a Northern victory and a de-
It’s confusing alright and the root of this is not feated Confederacy. It eventually led to the legal Arthur Schlesinger in 1949: “most people pre-
only “the disappearance of the middle-class” but (though not de facto) abolition of slavery. fer to flee choice”.
also the disappearance of the middle ground.
Throughout these years the country kept grow- Theologian Paul Tillich told a class of col-
That is called polarization! ing and extending westwards into more and lege graduates: “we hope for non conformists
more diverse regions, but the balance of power among you for your own sake, for the sake of
As this column went through its birth pains big remained in the “wasp” (The White Anglo Saxon the nation and for the sake of humanity”. Soon,
events broke out all around us: Barack Obama’s Protestant) Eastern establishment. it seems, he will see his wish fulfilled.
election, the world economic crisis, and the 9/11
type attack in Mumbai, India. Immigration of Europeans and Asians flowed in
THE SIXTIES AND
but they adjusted rapidly to the dominant cul-
SEVENTIES
Change happens and history keeps tramping ture and became mainstream Americans.
• Then, suddenly, Kaboom!
down our accustomed thought-highways and on
the way tramples down our dearest and most The Southern blacks and white Appalachians
The simmering issues of the fortunate fifties ex-
time-honored assumptions. increasingly fled the reconstructionist and im-
ploded into what Philip Jenkins in his book calls
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