Right down to the last stunning image, where the superimposed copy reads “by viewers like you,” PBS has gone all out with its production, “Prohibition.”
Created by the revered Ken Burns (with Lynn Novick), narrated by the left’s darling, Peter Coyote, this is a spectacular exposition of American history, from the causes leading up to the Volstead Act to its repeal and the unintended consequences thereof.
As we would expect,
“Prohibition” is lavish with compelling photos & footage and voices
represented by elite
big-name actors. The script, and Coyote’s reading of it, is powerfully and
deeply manipulative emotionally.
We are led from the
horrible alcoholism that gripped the nation, to the sincere and well-meaning
efforts and movements which arose trying to battle the scourge. We watch sincere, driven crusaders lay their lives
and reputations on the line, sacrificing and striving courageously until they
actually succeed in convincing the country to address the crisis.
Then, we witness the
crucially tragic attempt to legislate the problem away by means of an actual Constitutional
amendment, and the sad cascade of “unintended consequences”—a tsunami of crime
and death. This part is grindingly
thorough and completely honest.
As the law becomes a joke
everyone is in on, a
political movement even more aggressive and intense than the "dry" one arises, and, on the
promise of repealing the hated amendment, FDR is swept into the Presidency. The triumph in Coyote’s voice is palpable.
We see the heartbroken
clergy and statesmen and women--who so dearly wanted to save us from alcohol and its associated
evils--crestfallen, defeated, and discredited.
To the infamous tune of
“Happy Days Are Here Again,” we celebrate the “liberation” of our society and
watch our national descent into libertinism as though it were a virtual renaissance of the
culture. In the usually ignored darkest
sense, it was. Just like the 18th century movement away
from God, taught to
us in state schools as
“The Age of Enlightenment,” the ensuing era was an all-out, nation-wide spree
of hedonism.
FDR, always lionized by the
left elite, brought us an era of ever-expanding government, crucial changes in
the banking system, growing dependence on government, and the concomitant,
eternal tax and debt burden, making him a hero to the suffering working class. Had death
not taken him, who knows how long he might have reigned as Father of the new
socialist state?
The film is a monumentally
successful expose' of why prohibition of sin does not and can not succeed.
The tablets no sooner came
down from the
mountain than they were shattered.
No legislation is effective
against the desires of the flesh.
It is no accident this film
has been released leading up to the next season of elections.
If the effort to lower the voting age succeeds, the Demonrats will be carried to victory by a landslide of adolescent self-indulgence triggered by the single plank of the national legalization of marijuana.
If the effort to lower the voting age succeeds, the Demonrats will be carried to victory by a landslide of adolescent self-indulgence triggered by the single plank of the national legalization of marijuana.
If the Republican'ts hold
their “moral” ground on this single issue, and fail to also get behind the
inevitable, we’re
doomed to the final step toward totalitarian socialism.
