SCHOOL -- 1957 vs. 2007How stupid have we become?
Scenario:
Jack goes quail hunting before school, pulls into school parking lot with shotgun in gun rack.
1957 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack's shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.
2007 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.
Scenario:
Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight after school.
1957 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies.
2007 - Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.
Scenario:
Jeffrey won't be still in class, disrupts other students.
1957 - Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by the Principal. Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
2007 - Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADD. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a disability.
Scenario:
Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.
1957 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.
2007 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. State psychologist tells Billy's sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison Billy's mom has affair with psychologist.
Scenario:
Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.
1957 - Mark shares aspirin with Principal out on the smoking dock.
2007 - Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.
Scenario:
Pedro fails high school English.
1957 - Pedro goes to summer school, passes English, goes to college.
2007 - Pedro's cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against state school system and Pedro's English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Pedro given diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.
Scenario:
Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from 4th of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a red ant bed.
1957 - Ants die.
2007 - BATF, Homeland Security, FBI called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated, Johnny's Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.
Scenario:
Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.
1957 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2007 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.
This should hit every e-mail to show how stupid we have become!
And if we do not wake up and take our country back - WE will not have a country , nor a society to grow old in or for our children to grow up in
Think about it!
Someone, somewhere, took the time to create this and decided to glorify a time where men of color were lynched for talking to a white woman partially because of institutional racism. A time when women weren't allowed to serve on juries in many states. A time when HUAC still encouraged citizens to accuse neighbors of being communist.
How stupid have we become?
My coworker took the time to forward this to me. She added a note about how true it is. (Funny, she was only a few years old in 1957, so how would she know?) She thought I'd be one of the people who agree, even though I've told her, several times, not to send me crap like this.
How stupid have we become?
I think we're just as stupid as we've ever been.
7 comments:
I agree with you that 1957 was not a better time to be alive (unless you were a white man), but as far as the point, and this is the point I got: Government has gone ridiculously overboard trying to protect us from ourselves. Well, that I agree with.
While I agree, in principle, with what you got, I also got that we, the people, are getting more and more afraid of each other. If we didn't constantly fear that the person next to us was going to do the worst, would government ever have felt the need to try to protect us from ourselves. Hell, would we have allowed it?
The best, and probably most honest, thing about the myth of the 1950s is that people trusted one another and meant it. Today we say we trust each other, but I don't think many of us mean it.
Did you see The Fog of War or read In Retrospect?
Just because people in '57 didn't know what was going on as much as we do (what with mass communication being what it is today) doesn't mean that some fucked-up shit wasn't happening back then. It was just different fucked-up shit. Also, it seems like all of the '07 scenarios were brought nearly to the absolute worst-case, not necessarily what would surely happen.
We've been encouraged to fear each other. That's what the nightly and national news is all about! That's also why I don't watch or listen to news and don't read newspapers. I like being informed and educated, not scared.
AE -- Yes to the movie. No to the book.
Heels -- Freaky stuff's always been going on, your right, it's just getting harder to hide it.
I think you wrapped it up very well with that last sentence: We're just as stupid as we've ever been.
Just because the 50's are propagandized as Leave it to Beaver and I Love Lucy doesn't change the fact they were, to quote McNamara, 'very dangerous times.' Let's remember duck-and-cover, HUAC and the arms-race from beginning to today ... Indeed, we are 'just as stupid as we've ever been.'
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