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Related: About this forumsagetea
(1,363 posts)that was very poignant.
sage
I_UndergroundPanther
(12,450 posts)niyad
(112,432 posts)thucythucy
(7,985 posts)The fact is there were lots of people who resisted war time measures. There was a thriving black market of people cheating on gas rationing, and the blackout requirements were also resisted.
All this was, however, less vocal and probably less prevalent than all the anti-vax anti-mask BS we're seeing today. Then again, rationing and blackout requirements were the law, and people were subject to arrest and fines and imprisonment if caught for not complying.
We may yet see necessary measures--vaccines and masks and social distancing--come down to issues of law enforcement if we hit two or three million dead and the crash of the economy thanks to Trump et. al. But it'll take a Pearl Harbor sized shock for such measures even to be considered.
One other item: I really dislike this "greatest generation" narrative. The same generation that fought fascism (but only after being directly attacked) did little or nothing about racial discrimination, environmental degradation, the explosion of the military industrial complex, the subversion of democracies all around the world, the proliferation of nuclear arms during an entirely unnecessary nuclear arms race, etc. etc. etc.
If we do have to name a single generation as "greatest" I would nominate the generation that fought on the Union side during the civil war. Hundreds of thousands lost their lives--more casualties than WWII and from among a much smaller population. Ending slavery, passing the 13th and 14th amendments and the Homestead Act and making public school available to the masses were huge achievements in the face of actual armed opposition. Of course, that generation too was massively flawed--the genocide of indigenous Americans being one of the most obvious drawbacks.
Anyway, I appreciate this OP, which is why I gave it a Rec., but I always feel a need to rein in the whole "Greatest Generation" shtick.