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Now it is time to lay our burden down.</span> | Now it is time to lay our burden down.</span> | ||
While everyone was religious, some were <mark>superreligious</mark>, and they <mark>thought of themselves as a spiritual vanguard</mark>. They were <mark>contemptuous</mark> of the rest of us—we might as well have been <mark>agents of the Devil</mark>. It was the same with politics. The political scale in Dallas began with Eisenhower conservatism and ran well past fascism to a kind of conservative nihilism. Earle Cabell was a far-right Democrat, present at the founding though not a member of the Dallas chapter of the John Birch Society, and yet he was routinely described by the farther right as “the socialist mayor of Dallas.” ... | While everyone was religious, some were <mark>superreligious</mark>, and they <mark>thought of themselves as a spiritual vanguard</mark>. They were <mark>contemptuous</mark> of the rest of us—we might as well have been <mark>agents of the Devil</mark>. It was the same with politics. The political scale in Dallas began with Eisenhower conservatism and ran well past fascism to a kind of conservative nihilism. Earle Cabell was a far-right Democrat, present at the founding though not a member of the Dallas chapter of the John Birch Society, and yet he was routinely described by the farther right as “the socialist mayor of Dallas.” ... | ||
Across the country, but particularly in <mark>this '''new world'''</mark>, there was a certain <mark>adolescent bitterness</mark>, a suspicious feeling of <mark>betrayal</mark>, a willingness to find <mark>conspiracy lurking in every corner</mark>. “The mood,” as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., described it, “was one of the longing for a <mark>dreamworld [utopia]</mark> of no communism, no overseas entanglements, no <mark>United Nations</mark>, no <mark>federal government</mark>, no <mark>labor unions</mark>, no <mark>Negroes</mark> or <mark>foreigners [immigrants]</mark>—a world in which Chief Justice Warren would be impeached, Cuba invaded, the graduated <mark>income tax</mark> repealed, the fluoridation of drinking water stopped and the import of Polish hams forbidden.” | Across the country, but particularly in <mark>this '''new world'''</mark>, there was a certain <mark>adolescent bitterness</mark>, a suspicious feeling of <mark>betrayal</mark>, a willingness to find <mark>'''conspiracy''' lurking in every corner</mark>. “The mood,” as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., described it, “was one of the longing for a <mark>dreamworld [utopia]</mark> of no communism, no overseas entanglements, no <mark>United Nations</mark>, no <mark>federal government</mark>, no <mark>labor unions</mark>, no <mark>Negroes</mark> or <mark>foreigners [immigrants]</mark>—a world in which Chief Justice Warren would be impeached, Cuba invaded, the graduated <mark>income tax</mark> repealed, the fluoridation of drinking water stopped and the import of Polish hams forbidden.” | ||
No, it was not just Dallas, but my hometown was already gaining the reputation of being the <mark>capital of this '''new world'''</mark>. ... | No, it was not just Dallas, but my hometown was already gaining the reputation of being the <mark>capital of this '''new world'''</mark>. ... | ||
It was November 4, 1960, Republican Tag Day in Dallas, and the downtown lunch crowd was being canvassed by three hundred women in red-white-and-blue outfits. ... | It was November 4, 1960, Republican Tag Day in Dallas, and the downtown lunch crowd was being canvassed by three hundred women in red-white-and-blue outfits. ... |