“The Atomic Cafe” – We have met the enemy and he is us

“In times of social crisis and tension, in times when changes come so thick and fast that the individual can no longer place himself in his group, when he knows something is wrong but doesn’t know what, when he feels himself a pawn, in times like these, most men become highly suggestible, they listen eagerly for any voice which sounds authoritative. They listen eagerly for anyone who can tell them what is wrong and what they can do to right it, who can diagnose their troubles and find a cure.”

No, that’s not Glenn Beck warning his listeners about Obama’s ‘socialist agenda’. It’s a Beck-like doom-like voice-over for an early 50′s anti-Communist propaganda film. But it sounds like Beck. In fact, it defines Beck and his fear-mongering, authoritarian cohorts on the right. Or, to use a Walt Kelly quote from 1970, “We have met the enemy and he is us”.

The voice-over is used as part of an 80′s film, “The Atomic Cafe”, which paints the birth of the paranoia and fear in post-WWII USA that has become emblematic of today’s suggestible conservatives. Whereas the inflamed rhetoric and outright hate language has become outdated in much of today’s world, they remain core values and tools of the modern right. It’s remarkable how this language is reflected in the Fox News fear mongering of today.

You can see where Glenn Beck and the rabid right have merely extended the proselytisms used to promote the use of the atomic bomb into today’s screeching about the menace of Islam and the open hatred of anything foreign to values preached in post-war America.

That insular, we-are-the-best of post-WWII America has not gone away but breeds in the minds of an older generation holding on to the easy prejudices and fears today on Fox News and in countless wingnut blogs.

Watch the film here in its entirety. The quality is decent and the content will change you. You may also want to check out another film from these same folks, “Radio Bikini”, especially the final reveal which will stay with you for a long, long time.

Cross posted at Let Freedom Rain