1934 Chicago Tribune Cartoon--Similar Fears as Today?

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/93af1816951ece07.jpg[/atsimg]



Chicago Tribune editorial cartoon from 1934

Fear of communism was the order of the day. I find it interesting that the sentiment or plan of action looks very similar to today.

This cartoon is 75 years old. Most of the players of today were not even born. This cartoon brings several platitudes to mind.

"There is nothing new under the sun";

and,

"Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it"











Copywrite expires after 70 years, i think, but if not please delete.

Seeing that comic made me feel like I had entered the Twilight Zone.

Just change the names and dates and it fits today.

Great find OP. S+F

yup... and despite this editorial...alot of americans were saved from starvation and death. the capitalists wouldn't have cared if you let a few million die from starvation and inhumane living conditions, so long as the government didn't tax them because of it.

Just goes to show you, the more things change the more they stay the same.

Same fears, it is always a constant fear of a dictatorship coming to takeover a "free" country.

As you said in your OP though people that don't learn history are doomed to repeat it.

I dont think it's a problem of not remembering the past. Plenty of people know the past yet repeat it anyway due to other factors like self-righteousness and ego. They think "it'll be different this time" or "if only we had..."

Besides, since the economy has been ruined and surviving off of a successive change of artificial market "bubbles" since the mismanaged and subsequently extended "great depression" there really isnt anything left to destroy.

It's sort of like taking a prisoner out of the yard and locking him in a cell. The cell to him is "less free" not that the yard was ever really freedom. We've all been in the yard for a while now pretending we're free.

I suppose it's nice to know that so many people don't like the idea of sitting in their cells but not enough of them want out of the yard.

Originally posted by Hazelnut
Seeing that comic made me feel like I had entered the Twilight Zone.

Just change the names and dates and it fits today.

Great find OP. S+F

hey i know...why don't you talk to people that were actually saved by what roosevelt did. i guess you think those old people should have just starved to death or been put out in the streets because they couldn't work anymore. yeah...social security was such a burden to the wealthy. IT RAISED THEIR TAXES!!!! WHAT A CRIME!!!!

why don't you people go live in africa...there are plenty of countries there where you PAY NO TAXES, AND HAVE NO GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE...of course you'll have to pay off the locals to get what you want and you might have to have your own armed security force...but hey!!! YOU'LL BE FREE FROM GOVERNMENT!!!

[edit on 7-8-2009 by jimmyx]

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere

Besides, since the economy has been ruined and surviving off of a successive change of artificial market "bubbles" since the mismanaged and subsequently extended "great depression" there really isnt anything left to destroy.

The Dow Jones was under 1000 until 1960. Between 1982 qnd 2000 there was a massive expansion.

I agree with you about artificial market bubbles; the money has to go somewhere, but eventually the bill has to be paid. Similarly, the Great Depression was preceded by expansion.

It was the sixties when massive state sponsored welfare programs came into being.

Have you ever read andy of Douglas Caseys' books. I read "Crisis Investing in the Nineties" I guess you could call him a Laissez Faire economist. His books in the early nineties seem to explain whats happening now.

1934 Chicago Tribune Cartoon--Similar Fears as Today?

and as unfounded now as they were then?

Well, if you noticed, the US began pulling out of the Depression right around then. So if history really does repeat itself (and it doesn't), then this is good news. We'll be back on our feet in no time.

BTW - *spending*? That was the Bush administration that gave us the biggest deficit in history.

reply to post by ogbert


history repeats itself

great cartoon

reply to post by chiron613

pulling out of the Depression right around then

What?

Just pulling out of the depression in 1934? Uhh, okay I have to say that is flat out wrong.

reply to post by jimmyx


Maybe Africa would not be such a bad place to live, if all of the natural resources there were not owned by multinationals to fuel consumerism in the West.

Capitalism has it's woes when the robber barons make competition futile. In another vein, democracy crumbles when the masses all vote themselves a pay raise.

The US is a republic, where we elect representatives to further our needs. Unfortunately, there seems to be an erosion of the middle class in the US, resulting in a billionaire class; the workers; and, then the welfare state.

Socialism did not work production wise in the former USSR. There needs to be an incentive for growth. However, that puts us right back to depleting resources and impoverishing half the planet to support consumerism.

My own take is that technology needs to be developed to empower everyone on the planet without exploiting natural resources.

Oh well it was WWII that got us out of the mess in the 30's.

reply to post by pieman


Was it Roosevelt who said, " The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself?" Most people are afraid of change. Fear is perhaps not irrational, when you don't know where your next meal is coming from; it can prompt us into action. But, what action?

People are getting a little ancy today as they were then. Look at how much change we are undergoing. There is an old chinese proverb about crisis, saying that crisis=opportunity. So, what are we going to do with that opportunity?

reply to post by jimmyx


I have cousins in Stockton.

Huey Long was in the hype of the time. I understand that he proposed a cap on just how much wealth an individual could acquire. I believe it was a cap of $50,000,000.00. A really huge amount at the time. His program was called "Share the Wealth".

How many boats, cars, exotic trips and mansions do you need? After a few million, either the power or philanthropy are the options.

Long was immensely popular with the populists of the day. Problem-Reaction-Solution can work in a myriad of ways, maybe not always as intended. Long was assassinated.

Freedom from government is worth fighting (killing) for and dying for.

Just ask those who left dictatorships to come here, or who had fought national socialists. The sacrifices made by their brothers was well worth it.

Having had served in the U.S. Army, it was my main purpose to fight enemies of the constitution, both foreign and domestic.

Remember that freedom means no one can tell you what to do, and socialism means everyone tells you what to do.

[edit on 7-8-2009 by Dbriefed]

Originally posted by jimmyx
yup... and despite this editorial...alot of americans were saved from starvation and death. the capitalists wouldn't have cared if you let a few million die from starvation and inhumane living conditions, so long as the government didn't tax them because of it.

seriously?

www.hawaii.edu...

the Soviet Union appears the greatest megamurderer of all, apparently killing near 61,000,000 people. Stalin himself is responsible for almost 43,000,000 of these. Most of the deaths, perhaps around 39,000,000 are due to lethal forced labor in gulag and transit thereto. Communist China up to 1987, but mainly from 1949 through the cultural revolution, which alone may have seen over 1,000,000 murdered, is the second worst megamurderer. Then there are the lesser megamurderers, such as North Korea and Tito's Yugoslavia.

Obviously the population that is available to kill will make a big difference in the total democide, and thus the annual percentage rate of democide is revealing. By far, the most deadly of all communist countries and, indeed, in this century by far, has been Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot and his crew likely killed some 2,000,000 Cambodians from April 1975 through December 1978 out of a population of around 7,000,000. This is an annual rate of over 8 percent of the population murdered, or odds of an average Cambodian surviving Pol Pot's rule of slightly over just over 2 to 1.

In sum the communist probably have murdered something like 110,000,000, or near two-thirds of all those killed by all governments, quasi-governments, and guerrillas from 1900 to 1987. Of course, the world total itself it shocking. It is several times the 38,000,000 battle-dead that have been killed in all this century's international and domestic wars. Yet the probable number of murders by the Soviet Union alone--one communist country-- well surpasses this cost of war. And those murders of communist China almost equal it.

Finally, at the extreme of totalitarian power we have the greatest extreme of democide. Communist governments have almost without exception wielded the most absolute power and their greatest killing (such as during Stalin's reign or the height of Mao's power) has taken place when they have been in their own history most totalitarian. As most communist governments underwent increasing liberalization and a loosening of centralized power in the 1960s through the 1980s, the pace of killing dropped off sharply.

Communism has been the greatest social engineering experiment we have ever seen. It failed utterly and in doing so it killed over 100,000,000 men, women, and children, not to mention the near 30,000,000 of its subjects that died in its often aggressive wars and the rebellions it provoked. But there is a larger lesson to be learned from this horrendous sacrifice to one ideology. That is that no one can be trusted with power. The more power the center has to impose the beliefs of an ideological or religious elite or impose the whims of a dictator, the more likely human lives are to be sacrificed. This is but one reason, but perhaps the most important one, for fostering liberal democracy. 

[edit on 093131p://bFriday2009 by Stormdancer777]

Originally posted by Dbriefed
Remember that freedom means no one can tell you what to do, and socialism means everyone tells you what to do.

"you can't tell me what to do, you're not the boss of me!!"

freedom doesn't mean no-one can tell you what to do, in order for everyone to have a reasonable level of freedom there has to be some rules.

i think what you're grasping at is that socialism means you have more responsibilities than you feel comfortable with. americans are good at rights but not so good at responsibilities, hence the divorce rates.

[edit on 7/8/09 by pieman]

Originally posted by pieman ... to have a reasonable level of freedom there has to be some rules.

I threw up in mouth a little after reading that one.

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere

Originally posted by pieman ... to have a reasonable level of freedom there has to be some rules.

I threw up in mouth a little after reading that one.

really?

you can't kill someone unless they come from another country, you can't go around raping virgins, robbery must be kept to a strictly white collar environment.

EDIT: to remove bear baiting.

[edit on 7/8/09 by pieman]

reply to post by pieman


When has a "rule" ever prevented any of the crimes you mention? At best a "rule" simply allows a vehicle for punishment. Punishment that does not retrain. rehabilitate, or serve to reduce recidivism rates.

People will either respect anothers individual rights or they will not. You can't legislate that.

Faith in "rule of law" is misplaced and lacking value.

People don't need 'law' or 'god' to know what proper behavior is and is not. Assuming 'god' makes people 'moral' is just as empty as assuming 'law' keeps people 'lawful.'