Politics: Essential Viewing

"They hate our freedoms"

-George W. Bush, September 20, 2001


The 1950s America is often viewed as an ideal time, so nice that even satirists are hard-pressed to find criticism.

And yet, at the time, someone really did hate the America of the 1950s. The social corruptions throughout the culture of the time, the personal freedoms, the support for individual rights over those of the society was going to prove that culture's downfall. Chief among these was the shameless sexuality and intolerably lax morality of the time (yes, the 1950s). By this person's view, people had to be led, by a strong central government that enforced controls over the population's personal lives and morality as well as over the direction that the society was travelling in, or else the enemies of the Nation and of the One True Faith would corrupt and destroy all that was good in the world. Individualism had to be quelled, possibly eliminated if decency was to prevail.

Now, for centre square and the game, was this world view held by:

A) Soviet leader Joseph Stalin;
or
B) The man responsible for a fundamentalist Islamic rebirth, Sayyid Qutb;
or
C) The man responsible for the Neo-conservative movement in the U.S., Leo Strauss?

For one set of possible answers, if you happen to have an hour at a time, Throw Away Your TV has the documentary "The Power of Nightmares" up and running. It takes time, but is very much worth watching, especially for anyone who wasn't an adult or paying attention to politics since the '50s, and that's most poeple, now.

Find an hour here or there and check them out.