A BRIEF (AND PERSONAL) HISTORY LESSON

I joined the military when JFK was president. But I didn't see the leaflet above until I was stationed in Texas, then Southern rural Illinois, then South Carolina. This kind of stuff wasn't on TV in those days, or even radio, though in rural "America" sometimes the ubiquitous (in rural "America") newscaster Paul Harvey would repeat some rightwing myth as reality (in my memory).

So, I was shocked when I saw this, and the anti-Semitic and racist and anti-Catholic, and anti-immigrant etc. lies that would appear on flyers in my barracks or guys would try to give to me. I was freaked out by it at first, finding it totally creepy as well as crazy.

This was before the Goldwater wing of the Republican Party gained influence and eventually morphed into something even more rightwing and creepy under Reagan and the deregulation of TV networks and radio frequencies so that anyone could say anything and not have to back it up with facts: the birth of Rush and Fox et. al.

I like to tell younger people that when I was a kid, of course there were people who still believed the world was flat, but they didn't get air time on radio or TV let alone their own shows or networks!