West Coast American Leadership Academy

Political Science 5 – Western Political Thought

Spring 2016 / Fall 2016 – Power Point 7

1. American Military Power

2. Meridel Le Sueuer

3. Agee & Evans

4. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

5. Post World War II America

6. Betty Friedan

7. William Whyte

8. J.C. Holmes

Course Lecture Topics

American Military Power

The United States possesses the

most advanced military hardware

known to man. Here is a sample

of our overwhelming firepower.

Students will be asked the

following question following this

video presentation: What

prevents the United States from

utilizing its full military capacity?

Ultimate Power

Meridel Le Sueuer (1)

• Meridel Le Sueur was the daughter of socialist feminist

parents, Marion Wharton and Alfred Le Sueur.

• Raised in the Midwestern U.S. surrounded by radical

farmers, populists and the IWW.

• Wanting to pursue her literary talents she moved to the

East Coast where lived with Emma Goldman and was

friendly with literary figures like John Reed and Edna St.

Vincent Millay.

• Le Sueuer's first article was published in 1927. She

continued to write widely-acclaimed journalism and

experimental fiction into her 90s.

Meridel Le Sueuer (2)

• She incorporated political themes into her poetry and

fictional writings as well as reportage on labor struggles,

the plight of Indians, farm and rural people, the poor during

the Depression, and women's issues.

• A member of the Communist Party, during the McCarthy-

era 1950s, she was blacklisted but wrote prolifically,

stashing work in her home.

• This book is a Depression-era classic of famous

photographs and text that examines the live of the rural

poor. Poverty in the rural areas is as devastating as poverty

in the city.

• Sharecroppers are also known as “tenant farmers." One

should be aware of the special conditions that result from

seasonal patterns of work and production in an agrarian

(peasant) society; also, the workers’ dependency on an

almost feudal economic system.

Agee & Evans – Let Us Now Praise

Famous Men & Women (1)

Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers in their

generations giving counsel by their understanding, and

proclaiming prophecies;leaders of the people in their deliberations

and in understanding of learning for the people,

wise in their words of instruction; those who composed musical

tunes, and set forth verses in writing; rich men furnished with

resources, living peaceably in their habitations -- all these were

honored in their generations, and were the glory of their times..

The LORD apportioned to them great glory, his majesty from the

beginning. There were those who ruled in their kingdoms, and

were men renowned for their power, There are some of them who

have left a name, so that men declare their praise. And there are

some who have no memorial, who have perished as though they

had not lived; they have become as though they had not been

born, and so have their children after them. Ecclesiasticus 44:1-9

Agee & Evans – Let Us Now Praise

Famous Men & Women (2)

• Before entering the War, FDR urged support for countriesthat had come under attack by the Axis military. Congresspassed the Lend-Lease Act, which allowed Americans toextend loans of “military supplies” to any country that wasthreatened by aggression and whose national defensecould be interpreted as “vital to the defense of the UnitedStates.”

• The “Four Freedoms” were part of the President’s annualaddress to Congress.

• An expression of fundamental human and political rights,perhaps indicative of what would arise in the form of aUnited Nations document after the war. It is also indicativeof an ongoing international movement that promotes anunderstanding of “universal” human rights.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“The Four Freedoms”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“I Hate War Speech (1)”

• On October 6, 1937 in Chicago, President FranklinDelano Roosevelt warns of a steadily-increasingdanger of armed conflict menacing the UnitedStates, without naming any nation as responsible.

• President Roosevelt finds a threat in present attacksfrom the air on civilians, and ships attacked andsunk by submarines in time of peace and withoutcause or notice.

• Gravely, President Roosevelt asserts that if suchthings can happen in other parts of the world,America cannot feel secure for long.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“I Hate War Speech” (2)

Universal Newsreel presentsthe President's speech as ahistoric document, and giveswith it a dramatic view ofincidents of aggression whichcalled forth Mr. Roosevelt'simpassioned warning." scenesof parade outdoors, sound ofFDR speaking outdoors undertent, silent scenes of warinserted into FDR's speech,FDR says, “I Hate War."

I Hate War

Post World War II America (1)

• America after the War was “victorious,” not only as a military

power. It had come away from WW II with its economy

bolstered by war production, unlike its European allies who

had suffered destruction of their infrastructures.

• An “American era” that reflected a certain degree of

chauvinism that had come with victory and infected the

American mentality; but America’s role and success in the

war also reflected the definite reality of the U.S. as having

become the “preeminent military and economic power in the

world” (T&S, 1376).

• By 1955 the U.S. was producing half of the world’s goods.

America had entered an era of prosperity.

Post World War Ii America (2)

• The “Cold War” had begun immediately after the War with

the emergence of two great Communist powers: the

Soviet Union and The Peoples Republic of China who

would challenge America’s hegemony as a world leader.

An ideological battle ensued between the forces of

democratic capitalism and totalitarian communism. This

led to a certain “cold war mentality” among Americans that

led to the “witch hunts” of Joe McCarthy and the Un-

American Activities Committee.

• When General Eisenhower was elected to the presidency

in 1952, the nation returned to an era of conservative

republicanism.

Betty Friedan

The Feminine Mystique

DISCUSSION: What do you gather from Friedan’s conclusion?

If I am right, the problem that has no name stirring in the

minds of so many American women today is not a matter of

loss of femininity or too much education, or the demands of

domesticity. It is far more important than anyone recognizes. It

is the key to these other new and old problems which have

been torturing women and their husbands and children, and

puzzling their doctors and educators for years. It may well be

the key to our future as a nation and a culture. We can no

longer ignore that voice within women that says: "I want

something more than my husband and my children and my

home."

W.H. Whyte, Jr.

The Organization Man (1)

• By the mid-1950s, white-collar (salaried) workers

outnumbered blue-collar (hourly-wage) workers for the first

time in American history” (T&S, 1439). Before 1929: 31% vs.

the 1950s: 60%.

• This parallels the rise of large corporations that displaced or

acquired through mergers smaller enterprises. “The

traditional notion of the hardworking, strong-minded

individual advancing by dint of competitive ability and

creative initiative gave way to the concept of a new

managerial personality and an ethic of corporate

cooperation and achievement (T&S, 1440).”

W.H. Whyte, Jr.

The Organization Man (2)

• Whyte’s book examined the rise of the “organization man”

as it countered the old Protestant work ethic and the rugged

individualism of earlier American centuries (Turner’s “frontier

thesis”). It was replaced by a groupthink type of individual

who shunned individualism as tended to conform to the

status quo. Refer also to De Toqueville.

J.C. Holmes

Nothing More To Declare (1)

• The Beat Generation is the name given to a group of artists,

writers and social bohemians who rebelled against the

conformity of the post-War years and chose to live an open

and free existence that was anti-materialistic and which

sought mystical enlightenment.

• The Beats were part of a general rebellion at the time that

was also reflected in other forms of rebellion in response to

the alienation of youth.

J.C. Holmes

Nothing More To Declare (2)

• In many respects they hark back to the Transcendentalists

of the 1830s in their attention to eastern mysticism and

spirituality, individualism, romantic inclinations.

• I’ve included by own review of a series of books about the

Beat generation that offers its own perspective as the Beats

continued to influence a new generation of 1960s’ youth.