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He was so intense, and the dream was so hard in his eyes, and she understood it, that wish to be something, to be more than everything around you, that feeling that you were different, that you had to be, or what was the point?
Julia leaned close. Her lips brushed Elsie’s ear. “Never admit your doubts.”
“Religion is a drug. It keeps you from thinking too hard about anything important.”
“The best way to change the world is through the things people love, not through politics.”
“America is what is wrong with the world.
The ‘people’s capitalism.’ What a joke. Like we’re partners with our corporate overlords. Yeah, man, we all share in prosperity.
“It’s so easy to give in to what the world wants, isn’t it? You’ve been daring before. You can’t stop. Not ever.”
It’s the American way. Happy families. Women helping their husbands raise strong citizens to create a strong economy. Women on their own, relying on each other, well . . . that’s not the right message. It’s vaguely . . . one could almost say it’s morally decadent, don’t you think?”
“Being a woman means you have a perspective no man has. It makes you powerful, Lena. It makes you ‘more than,’ not ‘less than.’”
What was American freedom, anyway, but just words?
And now here were Runyon and the CIA saying it was their job to point her beliefs in the right direction, and the rest of the world’s, too, and asking her to help them do it.
For readers wishing to learn more details about this footage: https://apjjf.org/-Greg-Mitchell/1554/article.html.
There was, however, a vibrant underground scene and black market for jazz, and bootleg recordings from radio stations (recorded on x-ray sheets) were popular.
Red and Hot, by S. Frederick Starr, is an excellent history of jazz in the Soviet Union, and the website https://www.x-rayaudio.com has plenty of information on “bone music” for readers who wish to explore further.
The CIA not only helped to produce several books and articles with the intention of demonizing communism and to warn of a monolithic aggressor, but also used popular culture to urge a “normal” American way of life; that is, “the people’s capitalism,” blissful domesticity, American strength reflected in whole families with healthy children, and a racially diverse and happily blended society with equal opportunity for all.
Excellent resources for the Hollywood culture wars are The Cultural Cold War, by Frances Stonor Saunders, and Parting the Curtain, by Walter L. Hixson.
The Hays Production Code that kept every movie “clean” of sex, violence and “moral turpitude” was in effect from 1922 until it was struck down by the US Supreme Court in 1952.
