posted July 12, 2009 02:45 AM         

I knew a lot about Disney's history, but some of this is new (but believable) to me. Disney itself has changed a lot since then, both for better & worse.

But one bit of nitpicking:

quote:

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While Walt Disney backed right-wing groups and produced campaingn ads for the Republican Party

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Until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 shook things up for both major parties, it was the Democrats who were the right wingers.

Very short & sweet, Abe Lincoln was a Republican, and this caused Republicans to be despised as Yankee Carpetbaggers in the South. Other Republicans (including Eisenhower later on), knowing the South was a lost cause, appealed to other demographics, making them pretty liberal by today's standards, especially in terms of fighting racial injustice (particularly in the South where they couldn't count on votes from whites anyway).

The Democrats exploited the hatred the South had for the Republicans, and appealed to them in every way they could, from promoting religion, racial discrimination (plenty were supporters of the KKK, if not members, and that includes past US Presidents), and in Texas there were even militant Democrats that burned down homes & killed people who didn't march in lock step with the Democrats (such as those treating blacks as human beings). This gained them support of many conservatives who were hoping to support the old order that they saw slipping away and also made the Democrats the war mongers (all in fighting Commies and preserving God & Country).

The Civil Rights Act was seen as a vile betrayal, coming from certain Democrats (and JFK, one of the major Democrats involved in its passing & enforcement--as was Republican Eisenhower before him who not only laid the foundation, but also set up DC to be an example to the rest of the nation in segregation, btw--was also seen as a "Pope-worshiper," and Catholics weren't accepted by the KKK back then, probably just being one step above Jews), and many Democrats then transferred to the Republican party in disgust. Over the years to decades, this would continue to shake things up until the modern-day Democrats and Republicans exist as they're known today.

posted July 12, 2009 05:44 PM         

in the SOUTH democrats were the conservatives. a southern friend of ours who moved north quickly spotted the difference and switched to the republican party. in the north democrats have been the more progressive party for a long time. the conservative parents of some of my friends were all republicans.

not to say there haven't always been relatively conservative democrats and liberal republicans, just speaking generally. at this point in time the more conservative dems are called "blue dogs" by their party colleagues. nice, eh?

posted July 12, 2009 05:47 PM         

and re his employment of ex-nazis, it is amazing, considering the cover story how many of them emigrated here after the war. not something we have bragged about officially of course! there is a rumour that walt had himself frozen to be thawed at such time as the world was run by the next incarnation of nazism...

posted July 13, 2009 06:37 AM         

quote:

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in the SOUTH democrats were the conservatives

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As this is one of the few subjects I actually learned about more from the public school system than my own personal research, and that was in Texas, I have to concede that this is at least possible, if not likely. After all, we know Yankees (even Yankee Democrats) don't count in the South, so wouldn't need to be mentioned. (I say that tongue in cheek, but that's sadly true. My Texas history class and an American history class later on were both surprisingly pro-Confederacy, anti-Yankee, too, though not overtly so. I do recall getting downright angry over "Yankee carpetbaggers" in class, though, and I was one of the cooler heads there...)

posted July 13, 2009 03:20 PM         

and though they may have been more progressive that is not the same as saying they were doves. the democratic party has a very belligerent record, more obvious to europeans than americans perhaps. jwhop slams clinton for his lack of b*lls but it was clinton who blew he*l out of yugoslavia, wasn't it?

and obama may have talked about pulling out of iraq but where are we now? in iraq AND afghanistan, which to give credit to the republicans, is one of the worst theatres in the world to try taking over!

posted July 14, 2009 01:11 AM         

I do recall learning about a holding where the slaves chose to remain. The teacher got uncomfortable when I asked if maybe they were too scared to leave (I was 11-12 and it was an honest question, not like I was trying to be difficult--as I got older, I learned to stop asking so many questions as it upset people). The story was that the slaves had it good and it was insinuated couldn't take care of themselves as well (which is kinda true, though not due to flaws in blacks individually). Not that slavery was actually said to be a good thing, ever, just that it was white washed and shown in such a way that it was easy to think of the South as the good guys and North the bad guys without going so far to ever bluntly state it.

I recall being far more angry about Yankee carpetbaggers than slavery back then. I probably wouldn't have thought much about slavery in any meaningful way at all back then had I not read the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (age 14, after moving back in with Mom)--on my own as some local church groups were against the book. One of the reasons some of the churches didn't like it that I recall being where Huck Finn couldn't pray for forgiveness for "stealing Jim" as he couldn't agree it was a sin and decided if it was a sin, he'd burn; the rationale being that it was a bad inspiration for kids to think that we'd know better than God/the Bible, and they had enough clout with the school boards to get the book off whatever list for mandatory reading, though they at least failed to ban it outright (but IIRC, I checked the book out from the public library, not the school library). Personally, I loved that part, but I'd already had a bellyful of Christian hypocrisy, intolerance, & lies (they really don't think the 10 commandments apply to them--maybe because they think all they have to do is pray for forgiveness and all is well for their soul?) by then, so I'd probably been favorably inclined toward any blasphemy, not just the heart warming kind.