I remember my fourth grade teacher pimping McGovern in class back in `72 (man, I’m old).
“I remember my fourth grade teacher pimping McGovern in class back in `72 (man, I’m old).”
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Pfffft! I remember my fifth grade teacher lambasting Nixon for wage and price controls. So I guess I’m about two years older than you.
What sticks out in my mind about this was what a hypocrite Mrs. Bell was (yes, I remember her name) about that issue. After one diatribe of hers against it, I asked why she was so upset because everyone was being treated exactly the same way. She didn’t like that question very much. Of course, I didn’t understand economics, and the fact that wage and price controls are counterproductive, like I do now. but it seemed fair because it was across the board, yet she was upset. Well, this was my first lesson in liberal hypocrisy. She couldn’t have given less of a damn about anybody else, she just wanted her raise, and now she couldn’t get it because of Richard Nixon. I still smile on those occasions when I think about it. Nonetheless, she was a strict, but fair teacher, and pretty good at what she did, so I’m grateful for that and am certainly willing to give her credit where it is due. But she was just another liberal hypocrite.
I'm guessing that over time, public schools have gotten less locally oriented and more national in their ambitions--including Leftism and the Teacher's Union (but I repeat myself).
I started public school in 1960. My Kindergarten teacher was allowed to wear her "Kennedy" button in the run-up to the election, but I don't think it pushed many votes.
Back then, everything was local. I don't think it's a coincidence that all my public elementary school's principals were Catholic firemen, and the area was majority Catholic. It was only 35 miles from NYC, but was conservative. Then again, most New York suburbs were conservative, as were most boroughs of the City itself.
Ironically, my family considered ourselves liberal Democrats, but would be considered "conservative" today, because to be liberal then didn't include surrender, socialism, abortion, or obscenity.
In the course of the 1960s, the media changed, and we didn't. All of us were Reagan voters by his second term, and most were socially conservative, including pro-life. Inevitably, because it can take close to a century to realize what you really are, by the end of my parents' lives, our family was majority Catholic.
I'd have to say that Catholic firehouse culture had a deeper imprint on our very-intellectual family's thinking than the academy or "the media"--even though at that time, none of our males were Catholic, or firemen.
Note that even the media, while pushing Leftism on many fronts, was not yet dominated with "progressive" propaganda pretending to be news.
Political labels are but snapshots in time, while philosophy runs deep.