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When I was growing up in the 50s-60s, a user manual for modern times would have been greatly beneficial for navigating the confusing world back then. Life initially had a certain quality of innocence to it in the 50s and early 60s, those early years of The American Way, but that was before Eisenhower's interstate highway system tore up town and country alike, before JFK was assassinated (and MLK and RFK), and before onset of the 60s counter culture and Civil Rights movement. The American Way ([[The System]]) had only recently started coming of age in the late 40s and 50s following World War II, even though its birth had occurred over a century ago in American history. (''See'' — [[Agrarianism#Civil_War|Civil War]]) | When I was growing up in the 50s-60s, a user manual for modern times would have been greatly beneficial for navigating the confusing world back then. Life initially had a certain quality of innocence to it in the 50s and early 60s, those early years of The American Way, but that was before Eisenhower's interstate highway system tore up town and country alike, before JFK was assassinated (and MLK and RFK), and before onset of the 60s counter culture and Civil Rights movement. The American Way ([[The System]]) had only recently started coming of age in the late 40s and 50s following World War II, even though its birth had occurred over a century ago in American history. (''See'' — [[Agrarianism#Civil_War|Civil War]]) | ||
After being discharged from the Army Air Corps, my dad wanted to buy a new car, but none were available. All industrial manufacturing had been drafted into the “war effort”, and there were even shortages of basic appliances like washing machines and refrigerators. | After being discharged from the Army Air Corps following end of WWII in 1945, my dad wanted to buy a new car, but none were available. All industrial manufacturing had been drafted into the “war effort”, and there were even shortages of basic appliances like washing machines and refrigerators. At this time, engineers again took up the question of [[Planned_obsolescence|Planned obsolescence]] that had first appeared in the mid 1920s and 30s — what level of [[Fashion]] or shoddiness (necessitating replacement of goods) would consumers tolerate, which is to ask, to what height of wastefullness could [[The System]] aspire in its [[Capitalism#Love_of_Money|Love of Money]]. | ||
My mom was in high school during the war, and remembers her family having a ration book in which merchants kept track of what was bought per year, with restrictions on quantities, such as only 1 pair of shoes per person and 1 set of tires. If you used up rations in your book, then you could make no more purchases. In other words, America instituted a regulated, planned economy in the 1940s and that was alright by the monied capitalist industrialist powers since it enabled them to fatten themselves on war profits like [[wikipedia:Daddy_Warbucks|Daddy Warbucks]], but after the war such regulation was denounced (by way of [[Propaganda]] of the [[Propaganda#Ad_Council|Ad Council]]) as “socialism” and “communism” that threatened The American Way of life. We now know that McCarthyism and the whole Red Scare was nothing but a ploy to distract from what was becoming [[The System]] of [[Organized crime]], yet that same parlor game lying tactic of “creeping socialism” has been played well into the 21st century. We should have known all along that the stealing of lands of [[First Peoples]] and the exploitation of human [[Labor]] by way of indentured servitude and slavery constituted [[Organized crime]] for no purpose other than for riches, for [[Capitalism#Love_of_Money|Love of Money]], and that such is not only unethical, but immoral from a Christian perspective. | My mom was in high school during the war, and remembers her family having a ration book in which merchants kept track of what was bought per year, with restrictions on quantities, such as only 1 pair of shoes per person and 1 set of tires. If you used up rations in your book, then you could make no more purchases. In other words, America instituted a regulated, planned economy in the 1940s and that was alright by the monied capitalist industrialist powers since it enabled them to fatten themselves on war profits like [[wikipedia:Daddy_Warbucks|Daddy Warbucks]], but after the war such regulation was denounced (by way of [[Propaganda]] of the [[Propaganda#Ad_Council|Ad Council]]) as “socialism” and “communism” that threatened The American Way of life. We now know that McCarthyism and the whole Red Scare was nothing but a ploy to distract from what was becoming [[The System]] of [[Organized crime]], yet that same parlor game lying tactic of “creeping socialism” has been played well into the 21st century. We should have known all along that the stealing of lands of [[First Peoples]] and the exploitation of human [[Labor]] by way of indentured servitude and slavery constituted [[Organized crime]] for no purpose other than for riches, for [[Capitalism#Love_of_Money|Love of Money]], and that such is not only unethical, but immoral from a Christian perspective. | ||