Most of us remember our parents, our grandparents through the halcyon lenses of their own fictions.
“Back in our day…”
Really, we know it wasn’t all Wally and the Beav, yet we somehow long for that small town sense of community that we knew as children. Those “great” days, “great men” are our heroes and stories.
I’m sorry, but Rockwell’s America was a nightmare for everyone but white, religious men.
The same human flaws, failings and horrors that we see as the visage of this age existed then too, they were just hidden, covered up to protect the illusion of white male perfection.
I prefer to be blinded by the light to suffocation under the sounds of silence.
My father was a hardworking, honest man.
He was also the son of Polish immigrants, who had to learn to speak English in a Detroit school. Just another “Stupid, Dirty Polack” who needed “to the learn the language if you want to be in our country!”
Sounds hauntingly familiar, does it?
But really, he was just a man, living his life. I know, I’m just like him. You probably are too.
Every generation has bemoaned the next wave of immigration as the one that would “ruin” America. Now, it is those of Hispanic descent people point their prejudice to. Every generation seems to loathe the next as well.
But somehow, through it all, the post WWII generation has come to be seen as the “Great Generation.”
My examination of this has resulted not only in it being a complete fallacy, but being the result of a direct marketing campaign.
A man was king of his castle, then. Of course, the other men in power, in order to preserve this hierarchy would never prosecute another good old boy for beating or sexually abusing his wife, for incest or child abuse, for alcoholism, for any of the crimes that he chose to commit within the confines of his castle.
“Hush, hush, keep it down, now, voices carry.” Domestic violence is not a new invention, my friends, it was merely kept a dark family secret. It isolated the victims, who imagined no other people were going through what they were going through. “What would the neighbors think?” was more a construct of protectionism than pride.
A man was safe to do as he pleased, anywhere. Of course, even killing people of color wasn’t cause for one of the so-called “Good Americans” to serve even a day behind bars. They expected, were given, the best of everything, from real estate to jobs, from bus seats to lunch counters.
Blacks were abused by Law. Blacks were abused by our church-going “Great Generation.” It was legal and culturally approved denigration of other human beings.
With the rise of Industrialists, a generation of workers to produce for them was an absolute necessity. It is far easier to control a population by creating an economic caste system, and having those you deemed “elites” do the work for you of keeping other people down enough to have a low-caste service populations.
By the raising of the whites to middle class, with some disposable income, the whites in turn, made sure that Blacks and new immigrants could only get jobs that ranged from cleaning toilets for pennies a day, to migrant workers for ever expanding agro-businesses. Worker class, servant class, all cleanly done for them by the people they were themselves exploiting.
The racism and prejudice against any recent immigrant demographic rose wildly with the Post WWII Industrial age. This was not an accident.
There wasn’t crime back then. It was so much safer. An utter lie, although we have managed to romanticize the crimes of those days. The Mafia wasn’t cool my friends, no matter how much you adore “The Godfather” movies. Businesses were burnt to the ground, people murdered. There were body wagons that did a morning run every day in some cities. Rapes weren’t reported. People “disappeared.”
Has your home been broken into, have you ever been robbed, has your child (or anyone you’ve ever met’s child) been abducted? These things are less likely now that we are informed and aware. Crime didn’t change, reporting of crime became global, rather than local gossip. Domestic crime has gone down due to awareness. You are probably safer now, than they were then.
Drugs? Heroine was around and plentiful, many other drugs as well, since the founding of this country. One thing that did change is that Pharmaceutical companies cashed in and created a whole new generation addicted to “Mothers Little Helper.” What has not changed, is that white drug use is still hushed, and disproportionate sentences given people of color when caught using drugs.
The sexual revolution ruined everything. Well, maybe for some, I mean how many wives are trapped in their own homes today, while their husbands are free to have as many affairs as they like? How many women had to feel like “dirty little whores” for falling for such a man, a married man?
The idea of sex being dirty, our bodies being anything less than beautiful and pleasure being sin is a sin against ourselves. That idea was created only a means for using sex as power. Men over women in “allowed to desire.” Women over men to become kept possessions, for a woman not “owned” by a man in those days could not possible survive, but by the grace of a relative who would take her in. Sexuality is part of human nature, and by repressing it, it became a tool to keep men in power, elite, over women.
Which brings us to the “God and Country” meme, the biggest lie of all. Does anyone believe that atheism, that other denominations as well did not exist back then? No, its is only the idea that this “upper caste” was homogeneous in its Christianity that makes people cling to that belief.
It is part of the “caste” system to try and raise one religion over all others in a Land based on Separation of Church and state, a myth perpetuated by its own members to solidify their won superior status. Religion is supposed to be a tool to perfect oneself, not to dominate others.
What people see as a “Great” generation is only a result of them wishing dominion over others still today.
So, what has really changed? As the world became jet-fueled and accessible, Industry no longer needed a placid population of workers LOCALLY in order to profit.
Why should they keep “you” in a “semi-elite” status, when they could tap the work force in communities of which they did not have to be a part?
Nor is it the fault of the visionaries of the 60’s, who saw that the korporate kleptocracy had dehumanized us, and would ultimately pollute us into oblivion.
It is not your character, nor the character of your contemporaries that is in question, compared to our fathers and grandfathers. Are we any less honest, hardworking or ethical?
No.
What has changed is that we say the words rape, incest, racism, and discrimination aloud.
What has changed is the silence.
What has changed is, thankfully, the caste system is dying.
What has changed is the Kleptocracy no longer needs you.
“I knew all my neighbors growing up.” Well, the fact that small communities are no longer self-sustaining in a large population America, in a atmosphere where the Industries have given up on even pretending to be part of our communities, makes us more isolated, to be sure.
There is nothing to stop us from befriending each other, other than the propaganda that keeps telling us we don’t anymore. I know all mine.
In fact, it is of utmost importance you begin to communicate in your small corner of the Earth, for as economic collapse happens, you may need allies, or they may need you.
It probably takes MORE fortitude to exist in our world today, than the “Great Generation” ever had to muster. The Korporate people were on their side then. All we have is one another now.
I, for one, am glad to live to see autonomy for women, a Black man as President, and the collapse of the white-elite society that is beginning to value all humans equally.
I, for one, very personally, am glad to see the “silences” spoken aloud and hiding of criminal acts see the burning light of truth.
There were no halcyon days. There were only the forced wearing of masks hiding a sexist, racist, equally dangerous world where the korporate masters had yet to learn that we, too, were disposable.
Today is good. We are good. Truth is good.
We are awakening, in a very harsh manner, to the realization that the Korporate-created myth of any supremacy is a lie.
We are awakening to the truth that a human-valued system must replace the Kleptocracy.
We are just people. People in a new World, hopefully a World that can be improved.
The Great Generation?
Just people. People in a lesser World.
The myth never existed.