There WAS a time in the past when Americans weren't parochial racist, jingoistic, arrogant fools

[ddeclue]

at least not to the extent they are now.

Imagine if Barack Obama were to make an address entirely in Spanish or French today?

I'm listening right now to a recording of Franklin Roosevelt making a speech entirely in French regarding the North African invasion to take back North Africa from the Nazis that I found on iTunes.

There was a time when Americans learned French or German or Spanish or Russian and were interested in foreign cultures and history.

We are descending into a pit of ignorance, fear, racism, religious bigotry and above all violence.

We should not let this happen.

We should not stand by silently while others embarass our nation with their idiocy.

I fear we truly are becoming an "Idiocracy".

:eyes:

[AspenRose]

1. Another reason to hate FDR, I guess - He spoke French

That elitist!

:crazy:

[virgogal]

2. You have got to be kidding. Racism and bigotry were far worse

in FDR's time.

[ddeclue]

4. I begin to doubt that when I hear about lynched Census workers

and guys carrying guns to protest the President.

[virgogal]

10. Then you had better brush up on your history-tolerance of others

is far better now.

Not perfect,never will be perfect,but far better than FDR's era.

[ddeclue]

13. I am quite aware of my history.

but in all seriousness I think things haven't been this bad since the early 1960's.

[virgogal]

16. My response was to your original post,which was comparing today

to FDR's era.

[ZombieHorde]

5. Oh, you beat me to it. The Japanese camps were pretty fucked up too. nt

[ZombieHorde]

3. Wasn't segregation still prominent in Roosevelt's day? nt

[ddeclue]

9. Until the mid 1960's actually.

Roosevelt desegregated war industries and created black combat units (segregated).

Truman desegregated the military in 1947.

Eisenhower enforced school desegregation for the first time in 1957 in Little Rock Arkansas.

There were Civil Rights bills passed in 1957 and 1964.

The voting rights act was passed in 1965.

[BlooInBloo]

6. Uh, when was that?

[MadMaddie]

7. We are already at "Idiocracy" you only look at the Repugs

in WA right now, stalling the bills.....

We haven't hit rock bottem yet, I fear that when we do it's not going to be pretty.

[LiberalAndProud]

8. Parochial racist, jingoistic, arrogant fools have always been

amongst us. And I suspect we aren't the only civilization plagued with them.

[Prophet 451]

21. You aren't

However, you are one of the few nations with a large enough population for them to be a viable force in politics.

[Confusious]

36. The past was much, much worse

The greeks even had a name for the smelly uncivilized thugs outside greece we still today, "Barbarians."

That would include everyone NOT Greek

[Cleita]

11. Actually, they were. It wasn't so noticeable in the segregated neighborhoods,

schools and churches. The only minorities white people came into contact with were the ones who did menial jobs for them and then disappeared before sundown. They were for the most part unnoticed as long as they "kept their place".

[EFerrari]

25. Yep. It was also less visible before we had all the media platforms

at our disposal that we have now.

[anonymous171]

12. Yeah, it was before the Corporate take over. Back when people were citizens, not just consumers. nt

[AllentownJake]

30. Before that they were laborers

We had about a 40 year stretch after WWII where there was a robust middle class, the wealthy have been pissed off about it since than and have done everything they could to return the "naturual order of things"

[izquierdista]

14. Got a link?

I'd love to hear FDR en francais.

[ddeclue]

15. Just search for Franklin Delano Roosevelt on iTunes and then look through the recordings.

it was on 11/7/1942.

[AllentownJake]

26. Tell that to the Japanese Americans or African Americans of the time

and I say this as the biggest Roosevelt apologist there is.

[samplegirl]

17. Wonderful post....

I could not agree more....Fox noise hard at work brain rotting the masses.

:mad:

K&R

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Depends on what layer of the population you are talking about

you talk of the elites... you are correct... otherwise... the US has been pretty parrochial, and self centered from the word go. Oh and isolationist as well. We are just going back to those true roots... as the empire collapses

[AllentownJake]

28. Our elites haven't exactly been the best the world has to offer

Slave owners talking about freedom. Smugglers talking about rule of law.

We are a mixxed bag. Up until about 8 years ago we were the best humanity had achieved despite its personal weakness to this point as far as empires go.

[appamado amata padam]

19. I don't think that all of these negative traits

rise and fall equally. I think most people are less racially-motivated than in the past, but at the same time, less curious and more selfish. And as economic comforts decline, people become more desperate, and violent, in their quest for goods.

It can sometimes seem that our society doesn't really reward study, hard work, generosity, and peaceful diplomacy. I think a lot of people see this early on and say, "Why bother?"

Not trying to "blame society;" just trying to figure out some of the reasons that things can be so bad for so long...

[MineralMan]

20. Americans? Which Americans?

As usual the generalization is inaccurate and inept. Some Americans have always been pig-ignorant. Others, from the beginning to today, are educated, intelligent, and speak more than one language.

Both groups are Americans. The way to keep "Americans" from being ignorant louts is to learn things yourself. You, too, are an American. Don't let others define you, and don't try to lump everyone into the same category. It's inaccurate and unseemly.

[ladywnch]

22. I've been saying that ever since I saw Idiocracy......we are hurling toward

it at break neck speed.....and hell bent to get there.

[AllentownJake]

29. You have to understand when you are watching that movie

They weren't talking about the future.

[ladywnch]

33. sadly, I know. n/t

[spanone]

23. too late. imo

[Cerridwen]

24. I disagree - based on much of the history I've read.

Let me explain, please.

You said: "There WAS a time in the past when Americans weren't parochial racist, jingoistic, arrogant fools..."

I would say:

"There WAS a time in the past when Americans weren't {comfortably, openly, and unashamedly} parochial racist, jingoistic, arrogant fools {and those who displayed such were ridiculed for their parochial, racist, jingoistic, arrogance, and willful ignorance}."

YMMV.

[AllentownJake]

27. No we have always been assholes

Just not as big of assholes as other empires, still assholes though.

Remember this entire country was made originally on slavery and war.

[Prism]

31. Untrue. We're better now than we were

To begin, think of how far we've come in our society. Being racist is considered a horrible thing. Even active racists will scramble to deny that they are really racist. It's become the Scarlet Letter in contemporary society. To be branded so in the culture is considered one of the worst things possible. That is a far, far leap forward in racial evolution.

Second, jingoism has been at the heart of our politics for forever. Tippicanoe and Tyler Too and all that. In an age of low literacy and even lower political information, jingoism was the way for politicians to get their points across to the uneducated masses. That's why someone like Lincoln, one of our most intelligent presidents, cobbled together a campaign that was 90% hick-based horseshit - and it worked.

America has always been a land where the elites merited the most attention. The wealthy and the powerful were the only worthies in history. The common people were an afterthought. That's why we needed someone like Howard Zinn to write a People's History of the United States. It's not that all of this stuff never existed in our history - it's that no one ever paid much attention to it on the highest level of political and historical consciousness.

With the spread of media, up to and including this massive video and internet based era with almost unlimited access to instant fame and widespread dissemination of ideas, all of these attitudes, bits of culture, and regional slices are increasingly making it into the mainstream.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, our consumption of media, news, and politics have skyrocketed. We're attached to cell phones, the internet, and hundreds of television channels everyday. If you bounce around the internet and read fifty to a hundred threads or articles about right-wing nutjobs, of course you're going to think it's far more widespread than it ever was. Shadows on a cave. If you spend 12 hours a day staring at a lawn, you're going to start thinking the world has gotten awfully green.

It's a self-selected perception of things, unanchored and unrelated to our objective reality.

[TxRider]

32. Every generation thinks that

Back in FDR's day a whole lot of Americans spoke native languages from the country they came from.

[AllentownJake]

34. My Grandmother still spoke a dialect of German

and her family came to America before there was an America.

[alcibiades_mystery]

35. That one week in 1972 doesn't really count

[DeltaLitProf]

37. Dig up a poem by Ebenezer Cooke called "The Sotweed Factor"

It was written in the 1750s about an English attorney arriving in Virginia to try to seek his fortune. In it, he rooms with people that we would recognize today as "freepers."

http://theotherpages.org/poems/cook02.html

Whereever there's geographic isolation, poverty and strict religion, you're going to have the recipe that leads to freepers.

[efhmc]

38. Hard for amyone not my age to understand, but even those of

us with different ideas did not interrupt, shout down or try to quieten those with different beliefs. We felt all had the right to speak and to be listened to in a respectful manner.

[Greyhound]

39. It's already happened. We're there.

"Brawndo, It's Got Electrolytes."

[Critters2]

40. I'm not really sure there was. nt

[Johonny]

41. I can't laugh enough how wrong you are.

"There's my argument restrict immigration"

A Groucho line about America's immigration laws against... Eastern Europeans. I mean back in FDR's time white people were racist against other white people. My grandparents went to the Irish Catholic church and not the German Catholic church in town. They certainly didn't let the Polish Catholics in. What a scandal when my mom married an Italian Catholic. OMG.

When the US entered WWI the army tested all their soldiers entering the army. It was the first real standardize testing of America. Americans as a whole performed horribly. If you think the standard education level of the average Americans is bad now, you have no idea how bad it was in the early part of last century.


Were American's jingoistic before today
"TippyCanoe and Tyler too"
"5440 or fight"
"remember the maine"
nuff said.

You are wrong.