One Nation Under Me (eBook)

Prologue

The nation was feeling good about itself. The fifties were a decade of optimism and pride. The suburbs were expanding at an exponential rate driven by the pent-up demand for single-family homes and the golden age of automobiles. If you didn’t have at least one hundred pounds of chrome on your vehicle, you were not keeping up with the Joneses.

Families grew as well. It seemed as if every household had three to five kids. Some, even more. All you had to do was step outside and within minutes there were enough kids on your block to start a pick-up game of wiffle ball or at least maybe a game of kick the can. There wasn’t Internet in those days. The likelihood was only one television in the home that could pull in three or maybe four stations, if lucky. That was the norm, so this got the kids to socialize outside. Sure, there were plenty of fights and some bullying, but you learned how to deal with it early on with little intervention from your parents. Kids grew up quickly.

Even television shows were so much different back then. Shows like Father Knows Best, Ozzie & Harriet and The Ed Sullivan Show were in the mainstream. I’d be amiss not to mention my favorite Western programs such as the Lone Ranger, and The Rifleman. Most of the good guys wore white, and the bad guys were always in black with grizzled faces and shabby attire.(1) Sure, there was lots of action with guns and people falling to the ground, but we took it for what it was—just entertainment. There were very few graphic depictions of blood-ridden corpses or severed appendages. There were standards to maintain. These were family shows, and I would like to emphasize ‘family’. Indeed, native Americans were mostly depicted in a different light on television back then. That said, the writers did not design the shows to foster ill will or sway you into thinking any other culture was inferior to another. It was not to stir up racism or exploit cultural differences. This was way before political correctness, or when Cancel Culture, the Woke Movement, or the QAnon Conspiracy Theory took root in society. It was a time that depicted right from wrong and good versus evil. The syndicates were not trying to brainwash anybody. They were in the business of entertainment.

Then came the sixties. Comedy and drama took root based upon highly successful shows like Leave It to Beaver, and Perry Mason of the late fifties. Suddenly, the writers found a whole alternative universe to apply their talent.

The Dick Van Dyke Show and My Three Sons were perhaps the most wholesome and entertaining shows of the early sixties. It struck a chord with all generations. Then followed The Andy Griffith Show, to name another. These shows were ridiculously funny and had no pretense of being anything other than family entertainment.

With the success of wartime movies in the fifties, a new genre for television series was being developed. The Gallant Men, Combat, and Twelve O’clock High were based on WWII in the European Theater. It showed what valor was all about. It showed what the American spirit personified. Again, no subversive messaging or political connotations. Just a glimpse of what that generation dealt with, albeit a bit sanitized for viewer entertainment.

This timeframe of the fifties and early sixties provided escapism from the real-world threats that were just emerging. The Korean conflict had ended, leaving a scar on the fabric of the American psyche. Communism was creeping around the globe. The unforgettable chilling words: “We will bury you” from Communist political leader Nikita Khrushchev sent a shockwave through every American old enough to understand that we could all be speaking Russian one day. Then came Sputnik. Suddenly, many on both sides of the political spectrum who had fears of the growing presence of this nation’s mighty military/industrial establishment thought that it might not be such a bad thing after all. We needed strength. We wanted protection.

Even after almost two hundred years, the nation still struggled with its identity. Don’t misunderstand that notion. There will always be those that think it has got to be their way or the highway. There was plenty of tension and strife going on around the country. Racism was rearing its ugly head. It was always there, just not at the forefront. We have television to thank for bringing the twentieth century into focus for the American people. It opened a lot of eyes. Mostly for the good. But some saw it as an opportunistic way to further themselves. Some exploited the situation. Others used it as a propaganda tool for their selfish ambitions. You could say the nation was going through its second adolescence. The nation survived a revolution, civil war, world wars, and conflicts far from home. It was now ready to take the next big step and become what our forefathers hoped we would become. One nation under God with liberty and justice for all.

Before we knew it, communism had spread just ninety miles from our shores. The Bay of Pigs left an indelible stain on national intelligence agencies. American politics took a big hit. The Cuban Missile Crisis brought us and the world to the brink. Our nation stood its ground and prevailed during that thirty-five-day confrontation in 1962. Almost one year later to the day, the nation suffered its worst tragedy in modern history with the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The public was losing faith in the government’s ability to protect its leaders and to tell the truth.

Vietnam became the new albatross around America’s neck. What started as just a handful of military advisors turned into tens of thousands of troops waging war some eight thousand miles away. Many of the raw recruits were the first offspring of the greatest generation. Again, the government didn’t think the public had a stomach for what was happening in other parts of the world, so it tried to keep a lid on its failures and exaggerate its successes, but the press was embedded with the troops on the ground. Almost every evening, the news stations reported and showed the death and destruction occurring on both sides. The public had reached its boiling point when the news stations broadcasted the sheer horror during the Tet Offensive in 1968. Everything was about to come crashing down on the nation’s leaders.

The late sixties and early seventies were a time of turmoil. No longer would the baby-boomer generation stand by and let the politicians pursue their agenda and ignore the will of the people. It all came to a head under the Nixon administration with Watergate, leading to his resignation. The public didn’t trust Nixon and Nixon didn’t trust anybody. The nation reflected on where we were going and how to move on.

The rest of the seventies and into the early eighties was a time when the last of the baby boomers had grown up, married, and started their families. Their attention to politics took a back seat as they focused on raising children and working at the same time. It was getting to be commonplace to have both parents working and jockeying to see who would watch their kids. Daycare was the solution for many. For these working parents, the Internet and cable news were more of a distraction than a tool to help with their lifestyle.

The Reagan era of the mid- to late eighties showed promise that America’s new leader could straighten out the mess his most recent predecessors left behind. And to some extent, it worked. Inflation was high, but interest rates had leveled off, and the economy was picking up steam. This gave the public confidence, leaving less fodder for the naysayers to complain about. The fall of the Soviet empire gave hope for new democracies. Moderate conservatives were winning the day, but a wave of more liberal ideals was taking hold. Conservatism seemed to be pushed aside as progressive agendas were flourishing within the beltway.

The real transitioning of how the American people thought about politics and the world started in the early nineties as the fledging cable news networks, with their insatiable desire to gain a foothold in the ever-expanding media universe, began. They just wanted to gain their viewers’ share and be taken seriously. Their goals were just and their values sincere. But they had an eight-hundred-pound gorilla to contend with, known as the world wide web. The Internet was becoming the darling of the world.

I believe it was January 1991 during Desert Shield and subsequently Desert Storm when the public got hooked on cable news. It gave round-the-clock news in almost real time. Never did we have at our disposal this much information so easily available. The public became addicted.

The growth of cable news mushroomed in the mid-nineties, and the owners of these networks could see it happening before their very eyes. Well, you didn’t have to be a scholar to see where this was going. Here was the opportunity for every cable network to vie to be the leader in the media industry. It was their chance to reign supreme in network ratings and pull exorbitant amounts of money into their coffers by selling advertising slots, much like their predecessors in the broadcasting industry. The tried-and-true broadcast news, along with the printed news that graced generations before cable, was losing viewership precipitously. Just about everyone was hooked on cable and the Internet.

Somewhere along the way,...