

Is Your Country Despotic? A 1940s Guide to Freedom - rmah
http://www.theatlantic.com/video/archive/2013/10/is-your-country-despotic-a-1940s-guide-to-freedom/280695/

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RyanMcGreal
In the short clip of Americans reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, they said,
"...one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." When this
program was made, the line "under God" had not yet been inserted into the
Pledge. Wikipedia tells me it wasn't added until 1954.

~~~
hackula1
The whole idea of a "pledge of allegiance" strikes me as extremely creepy.
Having our kids giving their daily state worship by saying a "prayer" and
physically submitting themselves to a state icon is something that I would
expect would upset both secular people like myself and religious people.

~~~
tokenadult
The United States Supreme Court held in 1943 that school pupils may decline to
participate in the pledge of allegiance.[1] Most but perhaps not all state
governments in the United States make saying the pledge a routine part of the
school day (at least during primary schooling), but education regulation in
the United States is mostly by state law, so perhaps there are some exceptions
to this general pattern. Of course homeschoolers like my family make their own
decision in such matters.

[1]
[http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/sept11/16_0...](http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/sept11/16_02/supr162.shtml)

[http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vo...](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=319&invol=624)

~~~
alan_cx
Oh legally they may decline, but peer pressure and words like "patriot" or
worse still "traitor" probably mean most who don't want to feel compelled to.

IMHO, this sort of thing is as much brain washing as religious versions are.

~~~
saraid216
In elementary school, I stood up, put my hand on my heart, and zoned out. I
don't remember ever getting called out on that.

Then I started making extemporaneous variations that followed the meter but
inverted the meaning.

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tokenadult
This is an interesting archival find. I looked in the film archive[1] that
stores videos of this Encyclopedia Britannica film and found that this film[2]
was apparently produced in 1946.

One of the comments at the direct link to the film in the archive[2] is
shocking in its ignorance and bigotry. On the whole, viewing this film is a
good discussion-starter for thinking about current issues.

I have lived in another country (Taiwan) when it was a dictatorship[3] so I
appreciate genuine democracy. In the community I live in now in the United
States, there is a high degree of general respect. And I have substantial
practical power to resolve social wrongs and improve the well being of my
family and myself. I'm glad to report that Taiwan, the former dictatorship I
lived in, has since become a genuine democracy, and also rates well as to
respect and power to all the people.

[1]
[http://archive.org/details/prelinger](http://archive.org/details/prelinger)

[2]
[http://archive.org/details/Despotis1946](http://archive.org/details/Despotis1946)

[3]
[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5985720](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5985720)

~~~
astrodust
There was no shortage of ignorance, bigotry, or outright racism in 1940s
America. The WWII era propaganda films are so bad most can't even be shown on
television any more, even what was supposed to be harmless children's fare,
like Warner Brothers cartoons.

~~~
bostonpete
> There was no shortage of ignorance, bigotry, > or outright racism in 1940s
> America.

To be fair, that was probably true worldwide in that time frame.

~~~
astrodust
This is surely true, but most countries weren't making movies like America
was. It's just that America's racism is preserved in these various time-
capsules.

There's shades of this that persist to this day, like Black Peter
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte_Piet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte_Piet)),
rituals from a time when that sort of thing was considered _normal_.

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transfire
"Seventy years later, however, some of the film's warning signs still seem
prudent."

Some? I don't think people realize just how deep we have sunk in all these
matters. The central powers have just become much better at disguising it
--much better at placating the masses with cake and shiny bobbles.

~~~
bobwaycott
Exactly. Each of the markers are worrisome today.

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JonSkeptic
The respect scale portion is interesting. It mentions class, race, and
religion as reasons why people may not show respect to others. I think if we
add political views to that, our country has bottomed out on the 'respect
scale'.

EDIT: Also, it's kind of scary how topical this video is.

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mutant
For me, the most important part of this video is when they are reciting the
pledge, and say "one nation, indivisible".

~~~
astrodust
Ironic, then, that it's that word that gets excised and replaced with a very
divisive term.

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shmerl
Here is the video in Theora:
[https://archive.org/download/Despotis1946/Despotis1946.ogv](https://archive.org/download/Despotis1946/Despotis1946.ogv)

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barakm
"In communities which depend almost entirely on a single industry, such as a
factory or mine, maintaining economic balance is a challenging problem."

Almost a throwaway line, and of course, propaganda and dated -- but the
Silicon Valley arguably has this problem. Is the Bay 'heading into despotism'?
What do you think?

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Cenk
I get a 404, but the video is also available here:
[http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/280695/how-to-know-
if...](http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/280695/how-to-know-if-your-
country-is-despotic/)

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X4
Sir, this article is perfect!

