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[personal profile] captain_slinky
We stopped by an Estate Sale today that had a friendly, kind of *comforting* bit of political history to it that really put things in to perspective for me.

Before I go into that, though, a reminder that "Estate Sale" 9 times out of 10 means "The Person Who Lived Here Is Dead And We Don't Know What To Do With Their Stuff". It is the highest ranking of all the Garage Sale Statuses (followed in order by "Rummage Sale", "Moving Sale", "Yard Sale", "Garage Sale" and the lowly "Carport Sale").

My favorite part of an Estate Sale is getting to walk through the husk of someone's life, scavenging off the forgotten bits and really knowing who this person was without knowing a single thing about this person. I mean, this guy... he was probably a father, a grandfather, a beloved uncle, cherished husband, respected community member, all sorts of stuff. But now, after the family has taken what they want and/or feel was important, we're left with a blank form to go through and fill in the blanks on our own.

Sitting on a table in this man's house, was a box full of political pamphlets and propaganda from the 1960's and 1970's, starting off with "WHO REALLY KILLED WHO AT KENT STATE?" - A ten page document spreading THE TRUTH about the Kent State University shootings of May 4, 1970. The official history is that the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a crowd of protesters, killing four students and wounding nine. This document, however, informed the reader that this was all staged by professional actors and photographers working in conjunction with the Liberal Media (a term I was surprised to see in a 45-year-old pamphlet). The four people who died there were Hippies who had overdosed on "Marihuanja" (their spelling), and the nine wounded by bullets were just liars.

There was another pamphlet titled "WHAT WILL HISTORY HAVE TO SAY ABOUT JOSEPH MCCARTHY", all about the infamous senator and is Communist Witch Hunt. The document started out very promising, something like...
Many times through history, it has become inevitable that some facts may have become distorted or misinterpreted over the ages, which is why it is so important that we have documented proof of the events recorded as they actually happened. Factual data is the only thing that can separate a historical record from a fable or fairy tale. Only separating FACT from OPINION can we ever hope to have a TRUE and FAIR account of the events as they actually happened. And so it is that with this report we hope to provide the public, both present and future generations alike, with a factual account of the heroic actions of one senator Joseph McCarthy DESPITE the LIES being told about him by the cowardly Liberal newspapers and television programs of the day - both KNOWN and WELL DOCUMENTED TOOLS OF COMMUNISM being used to pervert and corrupt our great nation - THE GREATEST NATION - from within.


And there were others. "The Truth About Vietnam", "The True Agenda of Martin Luther King Jr.", "Nixon Was Right", "What They Won't Tell You About The Welfare Program" - about forty in all.

And it was comforting.

Our current political climate... it's nothing new. It's no more or less polarized than it ever was, we're just more *connected* now. Instead of a guy handing out pamphlets to random people like it used to be, now it's just reposting Facebook links. There are no more and no less uneducated nutjobs in either party now, we're just more aware of them than before. That's all.

ANd I can't figure out why that's so darned COMFORTING to me, but it is :)

Date: 2016-02-28 07:39 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lynna12000.livejournal.com
The comfort factor does make sense (scarily). It just means that society really hasn't changed much in the last 40-50 years. People are just as nuts as ever. The only difference is that we have more ways to share our facts, true or otherwise.

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