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Wisdom from 1967

Posted by $ blarman 3 months ago to Culture
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I wasn't around when this originally aired, but it's powerful and came on one of the most popular shows of the time. Shows that Americans used to know what truth was.


All Comments

  • Posted by mspalding 3 months ago
    Thanks for the link. Everyone should listen to this. It applies well to today's protestors too.
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  • Posted by $ pixelate 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Yes ... the Story of the Six Million. I am familiar with it.
    I am also familiar with the Story of the 97% ... as in "97 Percent of Scientists Believe in Climate Change" -- or something to that effect.
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  • Posted by $ gharkness 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Well, now THAT brings up a memory. In the summer of 1966 I spent a few days in NYC before a six week trip to France to study there. As part of our sight-seeing we got tickets to be in the audience for some TV game show that was being taped. They had celebrities come and play the game, whatever it was, with "ordinary people." Everyone in my group was so thrilled to find that the celebs of the day were Don Adams and Barbara Feldon. I was like "who ARE these people?" Never watched that show in my life. In fact, other than the original Star Trek and Mission Impossible (also original) I pretty much never watched anything.

    To this day, I haven't found a TV show of any caliber that beats my interest in reading. Give me a book and a TV and guess which one gets ignored.
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  • Posted by JakeOrilley 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    We did not have TV until I was a Junior in HS ('73) but used to watch "Get Smart" at the pastors house when my brother and I would go over and fold the bulletins for Sunday mass......
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  • Posted by JakeOrilley 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Yeah - remember gleaning a field after school - after the combine went through (with the permission of the owner) to get enough corn to take to the elevator to get cash for food.

    Entertainment? That was watching the town fireworks on the 4th......
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  • Posted by $ katrinam41 3 months ago
    I was a high-school freshman and our family always watched Dragnet. That speech was fantastic then, and means so much more now. It's a shame that kids nowadays wouldn't understand it, even with the line by line laying out of the idea. They have nothing to relate to. We have just one combined task. Return the young minds to sanity and show them what this country means. Under today's conditions, that seems nearly impossible.
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  • Posted by $ sekeres 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "four years old, he weighed eight and a half pounds..." I'm guessing they meant MONTHS instead of years.

    Once again, teacher says, "Remember to check units, so the Mars lander doesn't crash."
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 3 months ago
    Nowadays, I think people that age have it worse than I did.
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  • Posted by $ pixelate 3 months ago
    Now just wait a minute ... I listened and watched this Dragnet bit ...
    Half way through "We took a little boy into central hospital the other day, he was four years old, he weighed eight and a half pounds..."
    Did I hear that correctly?
    How in hell can that be possible?
    So help my mathematical mind, this sounds absolutely impossible.
    I once had a cat that weighed eight and a half pounds . . . I know what eight and a half pounds looks like...
    Looking online, a nourished four year old will weight around 40 pounds...
    A newborn child might weigh eight and a half pounds.
    Or did they mean eight and a half kilograms?
    Or are the writers bad at math?
    Or do the writers know full well what they are putting out into the public airways, they know that it is preposterous, but, blend in some preposterous with the mid-1960's message of the Red White and Blue and if we can slowly dull the populace in terms of their ability to differentiate the preposterous from the moralistic message, then we can feed even larger doses of the preposterous... and if we carefully control the blending, soon we can have them believing any nonsense that we wish to publish while questioning or even discarding objective reality.

    Then at the end, Something about recalling a man that killed six million people and calling it a social improvement.
    Clearly, I mean, Obviously, they must be referring to Joseph Stalin:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_....

    Propaganda -- why? Because it works.
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  • Posted by $ pixelate 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Propaganda does not have to be in the negative... it can be a device employed to keep folks walking on the straight and narrow, keeping to the high ground, staying out of trouble. I was born in 1965... my folks never smoked the nonsense of the hippies and were a cornerstone of integrity .. still alive today and none the dimmer. I still enjoy a few episodes of Gunsmoke when I visit my parents. Simpler times, simpler formulas and they just worked. Oh well, just me rambling a bit :)
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  • Posted by $ Stormi 3 months ago
    That is so good, and so what kids in school should be hearing, not this Schools of Education doublespeak! Maybe that is why we appreciate the USA, this is what we watched. Another great one was "Blue Boy" as Friday told boy the bad side of drugs. Anohter was "Route 66" eps. Bircage on MY Goot, the best anti drug episode ever! Young Richard Dreyhuss. At age 6, I had a giant teddy bear, named Joe Friday! Now it is all Taylore Swift who knows nothing about anything! Sad.
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  • Posted by $ gharkness 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Oh I fully realize that the Westerns were JUST FINE. Network censors weren't about to let anything questionable get by. But....we're talking about MY MOTHER :-) She came from an upper-crust family and had difficulty understanding at times that "ordinary people" stuff was just fine. In fact, WE did not live on the "upper crust." By the time I came along, we were 7 people in a one-bathroom house, hahahah!
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  • Posted by NealS 3 months ago
    The other night watching "Suits" on Netflix, Lewis Litt, played by Rick Hoffman, sounded just like Jack Webb, except a little slower, but even faster when he got mad. That's the only person I've ever heard that sounds like Sgt. Joe Friday. Interesting I just found this: “The story you are about to see is true, the names have been changed to protect the innocent.” DRAGNET (1951-2004) Fabulous. I thought it started when I was just a kid, makes sense now. How quickly we forget.
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  • Posted by NealS 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I always thought Dragnet shaped lives, sorry you missed most of it. The Westerns I'm referring to were, if I can only remember, like The Rifleman (late 50's), Lucas McCain teaching his son Mark (Johnny Crawford) the rules of morality and life. Another indoctrination from Hollywood.
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  • Posted by $ gharkness 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Funny, nope I don't remember those. Why? Because my mother would not allow me to watch "Westerns" and "shoot-em-ups." She wasn't all that wild about Dragnet either, so I saw a little bit of Dragnet but mostly on rerun when she wasn't watching.
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  • Posted by NealS 3 months ago
    Memories, I was on my way to Vietnam when dragnet started, but years later it was a staple in our home. Looking at it today, it was a total indoctrination, not much different than TV is today, but al lease it was all in the direction of good and humanity, unlike today. Love it, will dig out some more and rewatch them. Thanks....

    Remember when the westerns were on TV, the big gun fights, but no one ever died? At least not until the movies came out.
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  • Posted by $ gharkness 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Agh! Did I accidentally press the down-vote? I don't think so, but if so, I apologize. I think I've fixed MY vote anyway. Sorry!
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Love the intergalactic USS Missouri! Cool that the Japanese animator's used the ship of their country's surrender!
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