Myths of the Golden Era -- Exploded!

[MissMittens]

Unfortunately some regard past victimisation by racism as a free pass to propagate their own version of it while vociferously denying that they're racist. Elements of which can be found in the "ghetto" subculture.

Exactly

 

[Undertow]

It's incorrect to term it a "pseudo-culture".

When the Seattle music scene exploded, and everyone was out buying pre-torn jeans and plaid shirts, it was still a culture, albeit a prefabricated one.

That is, unless you would assert that culture must be organic in nature - in which case, much or most of America is pseudo-culture.

 

[MissMittens]

It's incorrect to term it a "pseudo-culture".

When the Seattle music scene exploded, and everyone was out buying pre-torn jeans and plaid shirts, it was still a culture, albeit a prefabricated one.

That is, unless you would assert that culture must be organic in nature - in which case, much or most of America is pseudo-culture.

Well pointed out. Kind of reminds me of an old British joke I heard once......

"What's the difference between America and a yogurt? After 250 yrs a yogurt still has culture"

 

[jamespowers]

That is, unless you would assert that culture must be organic in nature - in which case, much or most of America is pseudo-culture.

And that is the most salient point.

 

[Flicka]

It's incorrect to term it a "pseudo-culture".

When the Seattle music scene exploded, and everyone was out buying pre-torn jeans and plaid shirts, it was still a culture, albeit a prefabricated one.

That is, unless you would assert that culture must be organic in nature - in which case, much or most of America is pseudo-culture.

What is meant by "organic" in this case?

 

[Richard Warren]

But it is untrue. the quotation was created out of whole cloth, it seems.

Here's a link to a link at which a photocopy of the document containing the Morgenthau quote can be viewed.

http://www.burtfolsom.com/?p=1217

Morgenthau sounds like Buffett. Seems some things never do change.

The secondary source usually cited is Mr. Blum's book on Morgenthau's diaries published in 1959.

A simple Google search was all it took.

Seems to me Mr. Folsom is owed an apology.

I might open some minds a little to read Mr. Folsom's book, or even this (favorable) review of it:

http://independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=770

Or maybe not.

 

[Richard Warren]

What is meant by "organic" in this case?

Maybe "organic' means what authentic used to mean before the PoMo's killed authenticity.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Interesting that none of the people who wave that quote around like a flag ever quote what Sec. Morgenthau said in his next breath. But at any rate, I think the timing of his comment is significant -- he was commenting after the Recession of 1937-38, which set progress back considerably after the strong recovery of the mid-thirties. I don't think you'll find him making similar remarks when the New Deal was at its flood tide in 1933-36. My own view of this comment is that Morgenthau was speaking out of post-recession frustration more than anything else, and not making a policy statement to be graven in stone as a cornerstone of his philosophy. To pull it out of its historical context and turn it into a talk-show soundbite is as disingenuous as claiming he never said it at all.

Note also that Morgenthau might very well have had reason to want to deflect blame away from himself for the circumstances which existed in early 1939. It was he, more than any other Roosevelt advisor, who convinced the President to cut back on New Deal spending following the 1936 election -- thus triggering a crisis of public confidence which led directly to the 1937 recession. Morgenthau was taking something of a pasting in the press over this, and it's not surprising he was feeling frustrated and defensive.

A revising-the-revisionists view of the situation as it existed in the late thirties can be found here. Yes, it's put out by the Roosevelt Institute, but somebody has to balance out the Friedmanite think tanks which have been putting out anti-FDR propaganda for the past thirty years.

 

[dhermann1]

I recently read the three volume diaries of FDR's Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes. Ickes had ongoing feuds with several fellow cabinet members, including Harry Hopkins and Henry Wallace. But he also frequently points out that Morgenthau was never a big fan of a lot of the New Deal programs. And he also seems to think that Morgenthau was not terribly bright. [huh]

 

[dhermann1]

In a related vein, as I've read about this period in American history, I'm more and more struck by how inaccurate our modern perception of the Progressive Movement of 100 years ago is. The original Progressives were not just opposed to big business. They were also equally opposed to big government. And far from being internationalists, they were also some of the biggest isolationists. From a contemporary perspective, especially to liberals, this may be a paradox. If you want to learn about an American politician from a very different reality, check out the career of Hiram Johnson, senator from California. He was the very model of a turn of the century progressive. But he was also a big isolationist, and by the late 30s, was very opposed to many of FDR's programs.
The bottom line here is that it's very dangerous to look at historical issues though the lens of a modern point of view.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Indeed. Robert LaFollette Jr. was the son of the guiding star of the populist Farmer-Labor movement from the teens, and inherited his father's progressive mantle. He ardently supported the New Deal, but he was also an America Firster in 1940, standing side by side with the likes of Burton Wheeler, Charles Lindbergh, and Robert Taft in opposition to FDR. Political lines in the Era weren't defined anything like the modern "wingnut vs. moonbat" nonsense of the blogosphere.

 

[Undertow]

What is meant by "organic" in this case?

Organic being authentic, real, cultivated and natural. A catalyst, as opposed to the reaction.

Another explanation: psychosis is an 'organic' detioration of the brain matter, often resulting in adverse psychological manifestations. Anti-social personality disorder, which is often mistaken for psychosis, is a personality flaw; i.e. something that is not necessarily a result of a chemical or physical imbalance.

Or a simpler example: Hardware vs Software. An 'organic' culture would be the hardware, whereas a non-organic, or prefabricated culture would be the software. If you have hardware problems, you must literally replace the piece of offending hardware because it is a self-contained unit. If you have software problems, you delete the program and install a new one because it is only a piece of program that runs within given parameters.

In this case, Jazz culture developed organically because musicians of that era were developing a specific style of music in tandem, but not necessarily within any given parameters. The obverse is the "grung rock" culture. It started organically, but it was thrust into the mainstream as a certain thing one did within certain paramaters; i.e. wearing plaid, unwashed hair in the face, ratty jeans.

Organic culture is not necessarily something one can define, except perhaps in hindsight. It just happens and we figure it out later. These are the art movements, the music movements, the social movements. It's actually a Catch-22, honestly.

Prefabricated culture is easily definable, and in fact must be definable as this is its very nature. These are the post-British-Invasion culture perpetuated by bands like The Monkees, or the cotton short brimmed fedoras at Wal-Mart alongside polyester pinstrip vests, or the Dutch Tulip fiasco.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Peel back the contact-paper veneer of "prefabricated culture" and you'll find the Boys From Marketing counting their money. In the simplest possible terms it's the difference between sincere and fake.

 

[dhermann1]

And that sums up in a nutshell why so many of here are so disgusted with the PSEUDO rebellious PSEUDO counter culture norm of Rock n Roll.

 

[vitanola]

Here's a link to a link at which a photocopy of the document containing the Morgenthau quote can be viewed.

http://www.burtfolsom.com/?p=1217

Morgenthau sounds like Buffett. Seems some things never do change.

The secondary source usually cited is Mr. Blum's book on Morgenthau's diaries published in 1959.

A simple Google search was all it took.

Seems to me Mr. Folsom is owed an apology.



I might open some minds a little to read Mr. Folsom's book, or even this (favorable) review of it:

http://independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=770

Or maybe not.

Here's a link to a link at which a photocopy of the document containing the Morgenthau quote can be viewed.

http://www.burtfolsom.com/?p=1217

Apology? I'll take that up with him when I see him!

Now he admitted it as a misquote when I taxed him with it a couple of years ago. Reading the transcript, I see that certain elipsies were omitted in the citation of this meeting.

Morganthau DOES begin "Now, Gentlemen, we have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong, as far as I am concerned, somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. We have never taken care of them. We have said we would give everybody a job that wanted it. We ahve never taken care of the people through your mountains and your mountains who get a $30.00 or $40.00 a year income. There are 4,000,000 that don't have that much income. We have never done anything for them. I want to see those people taken care of.

WE HAVE NEVER BEGUN TO TAX THE PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY THE WAY THEY SHOULD BE. (emphasis added) We took this program to the President showing to raise another $2,000,000,000 and how to balance the budget and we had it in October of this year. $2,000,000,000!
We have never begun to tax the people. I DON'T PAY WHAT I SHOULD. PEOPLE OF MY CLASS DON'T. PEOPLE WHO HAVE IT SHOULD PAY. (emphasis added) "

Well when taxed with the questionable nature of the quotation, which was, as we remember originally cited by Dr. Folsom as "We are spending more money than we have ever spent before, and it does not work. After ten years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started, and an enormous debt to boot. - U.S. Secretary Henry Morgenthau. . . May 1939." He later changed it to eight years., which was nonertheless STILL inaccurate.

The use which has been made of this line is akin to one who would quote Psalm 14-1, claiming the the bible says "There is no God", which it does, but of course IN CONTEXT the line reads "For a fool hath said in his heart; 'there is no God'".

That aid, it does still seem pretty odd that the ordinarily exact Morganthau would claim that the administration had been in office ten, and then eight years when it had actually been in for barely six. It is also interesting that Dr. Folsom was only able to source this quotation two years after he was informed that it may have been doubtful. I WILL track down the supposed microfilm. I do hope that it exists.

Dr. Folsom's repeted assertion that the economy was in worse condition in 1936 (or 1937) than it was in 1932 is ludicrous. Automobile and radio sales had surpassed 1928 levels, and industry in general was producing a bit more than it had at the previous peal. Unemployment was "sticky", but with non-farm unemployment at 14% it was no where near the 38% of early 1933. Remember, too that relief workers were not counted as among the employed. If the approximately four million CCC and WPA workers were added to the thirty-three million employed, the rate would have been considerably lower than that 14%. Note that there was a spike in unemployment up to 19% in 1938, Due largely to the disasterous effect of the removal of the economic stimulus which accompanied Morgenthau's plan to slash spending to balance the budget. The unbridled deficit spending of the War years broke the back of the Depression, it seems.


I've read Dr. Folsom's book.


At I counted a couple dozen outright falsehoods before I stopped keeping track.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Exactly. The unmoderated corners of the internet will show just how much progress has been made in that area. The comments section on any news site is a good place for anyone who doubts this to prove it to themselves. All the vilest prejudices go marching on parade there, and some that hadn't been thought of seventy years ago.

A lot of racist and anti semitic comments are posted as disinformation by employees of various government organizations, some of them American.

Many times like clockwork I have seen conversations critical of government derailed by a provocateur just when they were getting interesting and turned into a rehashing of the same tired old themes we are all sick of hearing.

The other motive is to make certain web sites look bad. If they are a threat to the status quo they must be discredited.

I have noticed this in particular in the last couple of years on a financial site I like. All the best informed and smartest posters have been driven away by a few trolls and the site made to look like a hangout for nuts.

 

[vitanola]

I have noticed this in particular in the last couple of years on a financial site I like. All the best informed and smartest posters have been driven away by a few trolls and the site made to look like a hangout for nuts.

Mish?

 

[Undertow]

A lot of racist and anti semitic comments are posted as disinformation by employees of various government organizations, some of them American.

Many times like clockwork I have seen conversations critical of government derailed by a provocateur just when they were getting interesting and turned into a rehashing of the same tired old themes we are all sick of hearing...

With the US Military's new program on fake social media accounts, and with just one major social network's admission that at least tens of millions of Facebook accounts are confirmed fakes, one would certainly be blameless in reasoning 2 + 2 = 4 ...

One more reason I don't partake in those things. It's a sham and offers little more than marketing tools for sociopaths.

 

[LizzieMaine]

To say nothing of the corporate PR operatives engaging in such tactics. Government is far from alone in its use of manipulative media jackassery. One might say it has to work doubletime just to keep up with the private sector.

 

[Edward]

In a related vein, as I've read about this period in American history, I'm more and more struck by how inaccurate our modern perception of the Progressive Movement of 100 years ago is. The original Progressives were not just opposed to big business. They were also equally opposed to big government. And far from being internationalists, they were also some of the biggest isolationists. From a contemporary perspective, especially to liberals, this may be a paradox. If you want to learn about an American politician from a very different reality, check out the career of Hiram Johnson, senator from California. He was the very model of a turn of the century progressive. But he was also a big isolationist, and by the late 30s, was very opposed to many of FDR's programs.
The bottom line here is that it's very dangerous to look at historical issues though the lens of a modern point of view.

I find it fascinating how language changes over time - not to mention with culture and location. The way some modern day Americans, particularly the far right, use "liberal" (as both an adjective and a smear) intrigues me, because what the mean by that term is so far removed from the concept of a "liberal" here in the UK - that's as well as it having meant something very different some hundred years ago. The general platform of both Democrats and Republicans has changed significantly in the last century, and it is entirely plausible that those who support one now may have been more inclined to the other, given similar views, back in the day. Republicans - now there's a term and a half. If I utter the words "I am a Republican" they are likely to mean something very different depending upon whether I am speaking to a person in the US, in England, or in Northern Ireland / The North of Ireland. Absolutely fascinating how the same words can be such a different language (insert the obvious George Bernard Shaw quote here...).

Prefabricated culture is easily definable, and in fact must be definable as this is its very nature. These are the post-British-Invasion culture perpetuated by bands like The Monkees, or the cotton short brimmed fedoras at Wal-Mart alongside polyester pinstrip vests, or the Dutch Tulip fiasco.

And yet the Monkees were still a far superior band to the Beatles, and I'll go to my grave defending that view.

I have noticed this in particular in the last couple of years on a financial site I like. All the best informed and smartest posters have been driven away by a few trolls and the site made to look like a hangout for nuts.

I've seen this in some places too - specifically a musician's board what has a very active political forum. There are a number of people on there with such a strong, vicious agenda with regards to next November, all of whom are from a very specific slant. They are so blatant (and ridiculous, and hateful) that one can only assume either they are plants from one side, or plants from the other trying to make the former look bad (either way, they are succeeding at this).