Why didn’t public school teach us about the government takeover?

Well, teachers were toeing the Democratic Party line.

During the Great Depression, FDR and his New Deal central government tried to take control of American lives. By assuming responsibility for creating and assigning jobs, the Democratic Progressives continued former President Theodore Roosevelt’s ideas of “We know what is best for you. Just shut up and do what you’re told.” The answer was supposed to be, “Yes, Mister President,” or, “Yes, Massa Roosevelt.”  

Those plans did not work out partly because the New Deal did not produce enough money to pay everybody; partly because some conservatives in Congress (read, mossy-back, hard shell Republicans) fought the more odious aspects of the New Deal; partly because Americans knew deep down that survival of the country depended more on ideas of individuality and business employment rather than all working for the government; and the war that began in Europe in 1939. The war did not, as has been written, “bring us out of the Depression,” but forced Roosevelt’s educated courtiers to develop and manufacture swords rather than plowshares.

As ‘Ol Remus says in The Woodpile Report, Democratic/Progressive plans “first played out in the 'thirties by the FSA in Appalachia. When their ‘initiatives’ and collectives were politely rejected the left went into a frenzy of revenge, giving us the grotesque caricature of hill people we live with today. It was also a political maneuver. After being shown the door by po' white folk they pivoted to more malleable demographics, especially The Diversity. And that, dear reader, is why we're all lampooned as Jethro and Elly May.”

The government wanted to move people out of the mountains, into the flatlands. Governments have much better control when citizens cannot hide behind trees and rocks, valleys and hollers, but must farm in flat, open areas.

In the late 1950s, almost all government-focused news stories about poverty centered on Appalachia. All three news networks had several stories a week on poor coal mining families. There were scenes of wood shacks, women in thin cotton dresses fixing meals on wood-burning stoves, dogs on porches, haggard men walking from coal mines, children ill-dressed for mountain winters.

The government hoped to use unions to get miners in line and keep them there. Democrats had only the working men and women in their hearts. Government plans didn’t work, though. Government organizers had not read Sun Tzu. Mountain people had reasons for living where they did, and those reasons centered on keeping away from the government and keeping the government away from Appalachian valleys and hollers.

None of that was taught in public schools, most likely not in private schools, either. Public schools taught FDR as Savior, indoctrinated young minds into duty and obedience to the Democratic Party. Private schools proselytized young minds for ruling all others.

Things have changed. That New World Order of the early 1990s has morphed into Populism. The US of A, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, citizens of those countries and others are demanding primacy from their elected governments.

Citizen demands are not easily channeled into positive action. Changing the ideas of generational propaganda is not easy. It certainly is possible, but not easy.