A World Of Laughter, A World Of Tears

[TNF]

Oh wow.
George Lincoln Rockwell, huh? That's disturbing, to say the least.

Looking forward to see how this one turns out!!

[Archangel]

The scary results in Virginia can be used against Disney.

[statichaos]

FREE SPEECH RALLY TONIGHT AT SPROUL PLAZA

The current administration of UC Berkeley has interfered with the freedom of expression of the student body for far too long! In the belief that dangerous and unpopular speech is as important to the developing mind as any other information or beliefs, the Free Speech Committee has organized a rally to take place at Sproul Plaza on Sunday, December 7th, at 12:00 noon.

FEATURED SPEAKERS

Famed poet and writer ALAN GINSBERG

Hollywood screenwriter DALTON TRUMBO

Free Speech Activist JERRY BROWN

And many others!


Please note that this will be a peaceful demonstration of our rights! At no point will we engage in violence, vandalism, or other displays of hooliganism.

-Berkeley Barb full-page advertisement, 12/4/58


To this day, if you ask five people who were at that rally exactly what occurred, you'll get ten different answers.

The poet Alan Ginsberg was the first to take the stage, and he was welcomed as a conquering hero by the assembled student body. With a melodious voice, he covered the rise of the Nazi party in 1930s Germany, and compared it to the implementation of Disney's policies, especially as they related to the recent election of George Rockwell to the Senate. He then spoke of the "groovy scene" happening over in Western Europe, where he said that a mixture of young American expatriates and children of the Second World War were building a new underground society of happiness. Finally, he topped it off by weaving everything that had come before into Indian religious philosophy as explained in the Vedas. Some of the students looked confused at this point, but I sat in rapt attention, making a mental note to speak with him later.

Dalton Trumbo came up next. This was an act of enormous bravery on his part, as despite the strength of the Free Speech Movement on campus, the anti-communist groups were known to be far more vicious. Most of their members had experience in the Mickey Mouse clubs, and had been filled with Disney brainwashing since the president's first term in office. However, Trumbo gave a slow and thoughtful speech regarding the consequences of limiting free expression, and gave a thorough account of time that he had spent in jail as a direct result of his testimony before HUAC.

It was my turn. Clutching my prepared speech in my hand, I approached the microphone, hearing my soles echo on the cheap plywood stage. I looked out over the audience. As I opened my mouth, a flash of color caught my eye. Two students from the Free Cuba committee had unrolled a poster of a stylized picture of rebel leader Che Guevara. Standing near the back of the crowd, they began to chant "Free Cuba! Viva Che! Viva Castro!"

A few of the anti-communists who had been watching the events with amusement (and had been unusually silent during Trumbo's speech) chose this moment to take action. With a few quick strides, a large man walked up to one of the sign-holders, a small blond woman, and began to berate her. A spirited argument broke out between the two. Soon both of them were surrounded, with the Free Speech advocates on one side, and the heavily outnumbered anti-communists on the other. The police decided to intervene. An officer broke through the crowd and asked the young woman and her friend to put away the sign. They refused. He grabbed at it. They pulled. The students began to scream at each other. Finally, in desperation, the young woman pushed the officer.

He immediately brought out his nightstick and sent it caroming off the side of her head. She hit the ground, bleeding.

Something erupted in the crowd, something that had been contained under polite disagreement with the administration, under late night "rap sessions" of whether or not there were limits on speech. This was the voice of a generation that had been told for the past six years that the proto-fascism of the Disney administration somehow had something to do with the American dream that our ancestors had fought and died for.

All of this was released in a single wave of anger. Not the anger of the oppressed racial minorities in the United States, who were still in the midst of often violent actions against their tormentors. Rather, this was the rage of a generation betrayed and lied to, the privileged few realizing not only at what cost their comfort came, but also how brutally the system would react when questioned and confronted.

They didn't have the heart for direct confrontation, and for that I was eternally grateful. I had no desire to see any more blood that day. Instead, they scattered at my direction as Ginsberg sat beside me and chanted "OM".

Dad called me later and complained at some length about my choices in life, but I took it in stride. I understood that he had his political career to watch out for. However, I was beginning to see that the problems in America went beyond a single issue of free speech, and were inherent in a system that saw violence as the tool of first resort when confronted with any social issue.

The next day, I teamed up with Arnie Davis, Kathleen Corman, and some others to form the Progressive Students' Alliance. It was decided that our first course of action would be designed to peacefully yet forcefully draw attention to what was happening at our university.

-Liberation: A Memoir, by former President Jerry Brown


BERKELEY STUDENTS STRIKE- Chancellor Threatens Mass Disciplinary Actions

-San Francisco Chronicle, 11/15/58

"After the dinner, the President and Ambassador Smirnov will retire to privately discuss matters relevant to our two nations. And yes, before you ask, the Israel/Palestine question will be a topic of major import. The sufferings of the Palestinians at that hands of elements of the Israeli government weigh heavily on the President's mind."

[Question unintelligible]

"Yes, the President was gracious enough to invite me due to my new title and responsibilities."

-White House Communications Director James Dodd, 12/3/58


PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL MEMO. DESTROY AFTER READING:

The recent friendliness between the Soviet Union and Israel has caused some Jews (both religious and secular) in the United States to begin to harbor unfortunate sympathies towards the communist government in Moscow. While we caution our leaders against any display of anti-Semitism, and remind them that our organization is open to people of all God-fearing religious backgrounds, it is deemed prudent for Clubhouse Mouseketeer Group Leaders to observe our members of the Jewish faith to ensure that their highest loyalty is to America, and to the Mickey Mouse Club laws and oaths.

Any overtly pro-Israel statements on the part of these members shall be immediately reported to the Home Office in Burbank.

-Internal Mickey Mouse Club Memo, unsigned (but attributed to Anita Bryant)


"Yeah, I was up for Division Leader, but suddenly the brakes were put on. It was strange. My brother had been put in the same position, and I had way more Mouse Medallions than he did at my age. Our Division Leader never said it outright, and it was obvious that he felt bad, but he kind of hinted that I should be wearing the beanie with the ears on it more often, and the one without 'em a lot less...."

-Benjamin Meyer, quoted in Let Us Hold Our Banner High, Documentary Prize winner at the Cannes International Film Festival, 2002.


"I'm dreaming of a White Christmas...through my gunsights"

-Bathroom wall graffiti seen in Watts, 12/19/58


USC RADICALS THREATEN "SYMPATHY STRIKE" IF BERKELEY DEMANDS NOT MET
-Los Angeles Times, 1/5/59

The harassment and exclusion of Jewish members of the Mickey Mouse Club is a troubling development in the short history of this youth organization. As their Jewish members are patriotic, God-fearing citizens of the United States of America, it is far more puzzling that the Mickey Mouse Clubs would choose to act in a manner far more befitting our recent adversaries on the battlefields, and not in a manner befitting the principles that this nation was founded on.

We therefore officially protest these actions on the part of the Mickey Mouse Clubs, and by extension, we protest these actions on the part of the Walt Disney Company. If our concerns are not addressed and allayed in a reasonable amount of time, we will have no choice but to advise all current Jewish members to resign their posts, and all those considering membership to not join in the first place.

-Official statement, Anti-Defamation League, 1/10/59


KENNEDY ANNOUNCES BID FOR DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION- Massachusetts Senator Given Little Hope Due To Civil Rights Ties

-Boston Globe, 1/15/59

[Redem]

Originally Posted by statichaos

KENNEDY ANNOUNCES BID FOR DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION- Massachusetts Senator Given Little Hope Due To Civil Rights Ties

-Boston Globe, 1/15/59

Just by the end of the sentence you see how their word is screwed up

[Japhy]

It just keeps getting better. And by better I mean a more interesting read. In the ATL, things just get more and more rotten. I mean, look at what Jerry Brown called his book here! The Baby-Boomer Generation is going to be a nightmare (or as some would say, a bigger one then it was IRL)

[David bar Elias]

Originally Posted by statichaos

"After the dinner, the President and Ambassador Smirnov will retire to privately discuss matters relevant to our two nations. And yes, before you ask, the Israel/Palestine question will be a topic of major import. The sufferings of the Palestinians at that hands of elements of the Israeli government weigh heavily on the President's mind."

[Question unintelligible]

"Yes, the President was gracious enough to invite me due to my new title and responsibilities."

-White House Communications Director James Dodd, 12/3/58

This is going to lead to some especially bad times in the Mideast, I imagine.

But I'll be interested to see what a Soviet-backed Israel and the American-supported Arab countries will look like under this new geopolitical situation. Keep up the good (though morbid) work!

[Redem]

Originally Posted by David bar Elias

This is going to lead to some especially bad times in the Mideast, I imagine.

Well let just wonder this if they have it worst ( but nothing nuclear) goes down in the middle-east but it last shorter than us

[Fenrir_Angerboda]

huh Soviet-backed Israel.
There's something you don't see every TL.

[Hendryk]

The end of Disney's second term looks like it will be a troubled time indeed.

[Geekhis Khan]

Just...Wow. Brilliant, disquieting, fascinating. Bravo, stat, bravo.

[Historico]

Another awesome Installment Stat, hmmm Poor Jack, I was really looking for him to be able to clinch the nomination. I just don't know if their is even a Disneyesque Democrat whith a chance of winning(We got a whole lot of Southern Governors and Senators we could pick, but for the most part theyd be unacceptabe to the entire party even in these dark circumstances). Can't wait to see how the full fledged 1960 election goes

[TNF]

Wow. This is seriously shaping up to been an even better time line than it already was.

I'm looking forward to the 1960 Presidential Campaign, though I'm puzzled as to who is going to be up against who in it...Good stuff, though.

[grdja83]

Very happy to see this timeline live. Creepy and very interesting.

[Orville_third]

Originally Posted by Fenrir_Angerboda

huh Soviet-backed Israel.
There's something you don't see every TL.

Well, even in OTL, in the early days, the Soviets did back Israel, viewing it as a "National Liberation Movement" in the words of a UN Ambassador. Further, even today, while the old Communist PFLP-type groups are still active, some plot against, not just Israel but the Arab monarchies in the region...

[statichaos]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone! It's very encouraging.




Today's Capitol Hill swearing-in ceremony for newly elected incoming Senators was nearly disrupted by protesters from the Jewish Anti-Defamation League when a single member of the protest attempted to storm the Capitol steps, shouting claims that newly elected Senator George L. Rockwell (R-VA) had Nazi sympathies.

Rabbi Meir Kahane (27) of Brooklyn, NY, was briefly detained by local officials before posting bond. Upon his release, he stated to waiting journalists "My frustration got the better of me. This man, this Rockwell, he gets elected to a high office, and all we can do is march? Did marches keep us out of the death camp? Did paper signs stop the madmen from marching across the Polish border and massacring our people there? Never again!"

The Anti-Defamation League has disavowed any advance knowledge of Rabbi Kahane's activities, and has stated that he will be expelled from the organization if he takes any other unauthorized actions against Senator Rockwell.

In a statement released to the press on behalf of Senator Rockwell, spokesman John Patsalos stated "Senator Rockwell has no issue with the vast majority of Jewish people in the United States. Instead, he has problems with Communism, and with the Jews who have chosen to insinuate themselves into positions of power in the United States in order to stir up racial unrest in the hopes of eventually imposing a Communist system of government in our great nation."

-Washington Post, 1/23/59


It was cold that winter, nasty cold. People in Manhattan, they were still going out to their fancy restaurants and keeping warm in their heated theaters, but we colored folk didn't have a pot to piss in, much less any money to pay for the radiator to be running all day...if it worked in the first place, mind you. So we'd do our best to all pack into the same smoky bar or dance hall, hoping that we'd manage to dance ourselves warm. Other ways of keeping warm, too, and there were a lot of babies born around October every year.

This year got even worse. There was this feeling that we'd been so close to something real, to something good, and somehow we'd let it get taken from us. A number of the young men got angry and joined the Black Muslims, but most of us were Christians. Leastaways, most of us showed up to church on Sunday, and called ourselves that.

That's when Eldridge came to town.

You have to understand about Eldridge: He wasn't no bowtied Nation of Islam type, telling folks to trust Allah, or saying "The Honorable Malcolm X says..." before anything that came out of his mouth. He also wasn't one of those preachers crying for peace, one of the discredited Uncle Toms leading our people to the slaughterhouse.

No, Eldridge was a fine black man, young, self-educated, and streetwise. He'd managed to escape from jail a few months back, and he'd been making the rounds of black communities in the Northeast, giving talks to small groups of people, folks getting invited through word of mouth to some basement or storeroom. We'd sit there shivering and grumbling, and then he'd come out and talk, and we were spellbound, let me tell you. He'd start off with some joke about how he couldn't see if any white folks were tailing him because they blended in with the snow, and we'd laugh. Then he'd talk about his time in jail, and what it had done to him, and how he'd started realizing that the problem was what we were doing to ourselves and our own communities, and that we couldn't wait for white folks to sit up and hand us our rights. Instead, we had to live like we had rights, and defend ourselves by any means necessary...we knew he took that last line from Malcolm, and he knew that we knew, because we all saw that twinkle in his eye as he aped the Minister's speaking style.

So he'd talk about revolutionary structure and a whole lot of other stuff that would have been boring coming from anyone else's lips, but we'd get into it, and by the end of it, I was part of a Revolutionary Cell of the African Brotherhood. He gave us some ideas, left some leaflets and pamphlets on guns and bomb making, and then disappeared into the night one step ahead of the police.

I went back home that first night and read his prison memoir Soul On Fire all in one sitting. Next day, I applied to New York University, knowing that the revolution would need people with active minds. I was bound and determined to make my mind as active as possible before they started cutting off our education in the north like they were already doing down south.

-Former African Brotherhood member Aaron Erickson, quoted in Magic Kingdom: America In The 50s, by Studs Terkel


Much to my surprise and gratification, I arrived at London's Heathrow Airport to no little fanfare. One would have thought that while my first self-imposed exile might have been newsworthy, my second one would have no more interest than a second run of a situation comedy. As I alit from the airplane and made my way across the tarmac, my eyes were greeted by the welcome yet undeniably scruffy sight of a crowd of Fleet Street's finest ink-stained wretches, all clamoring to ask questions of that rarest of creatures, a Hollywood celebrity. Flashbulbs popped and sparkled like fireworks in the gloomy London fog as I responded with an off-the-cuff statement of my purposes and intent:

"America is under a shadow," I intoned gravely. "A shadow that crossed Europe not so many years ago, and yet it seems that we as a nation have forgotten exactly what we fought and died for in that worldwide carnage. We are run by venal madmen, and those in positions of prestige and influence in Hollywood have turned their backs upon their heritage and religion to dance to the atonal strains of creeping fascism. There is no longer a place in America for the artist, the dreamer, for those who would offer a differing and humane perspective on the possibilities of tomorrow, or for those who would stand up to the racists and anti-Semites to say 'No more!'

"Therefore, I have taken the kind offer of Pinewood Studios to direct a film for their company, and currently plan to stay in Europe until America regains her senses. Thank you."

With that, I swept into a waiting automobile, and removed myself to the suite awaiting me at The Strand. Not only did I have the expected note of welcome from my employers at the front desk, but also an invitation from Charles Chaplin to take tea with him during a planned visit to London next week, and a message from Jean Cocteau inviting me to meet a young filmmaker named Godard.

I'd barely been back in town for an hour and half, and already it was proving more artistically and professionally fruitful than the past two years that I'd frittered away in Hollywood. First, though, I needed a bath to wash away the airplane smell, and to nourish myself with an appropriately large repast.

-Through A Lens Darkly: The Autobiography of Orson Welles, Orson Welles, 1973


FROM THE DESK OF RONALD REAGAN

Dear Anita,

I wanted to drop you a personal note to let you know that I couldn't be more pleased with the show. Your bright smile and chipper disposition are just the tonic for what ails any child across the land.

On another note, we're looking at some uniform changes for the Disney Defenders. The armbands are bringing up some unfortunate implications, and we'd hate for unfair and unjust insinuations to be thrown at the brave lads who have chosen to help out their communities. Therefore, we're looking at a new badge of honor, the coonskin cap. Our people will be sending you samples shortly.

If there is any way that I can help you, please let me know. Say hi to your mother and father for me, and let them know that we should all get together for lunch someday soon.

Sincerely,

Ronald Reagan
Chief Executive Officer
Disney, Inc.

[Japhy]

The Anti-semitism seems to be picking up fast.

[statichaos]

Originally Posted by Japhy

The Anti-semitism seems to be picking up fast.

Yes, it's mostly a response to the Soviet Union seeing an opportunity in a strategic alliance with Israel.

[Redem]

Originally Posted by Japhy

The Anti-semitism seems to be picking up fast.

I wonder how that will affect long term perception of the holocaust

[Nekromans]

Widespread anti-semitism? African Brotherhood? The Sixties look set to be Chinese-interesting.

At least the Disney Defenders cottoned on to the "We = SS" parallels at last.

[Hendryk]

I had to look up who Eldridge was, and having done so, I must say it makes perfect sense to see him show up this way.