Oh boy...I don't want to imagine what's going to happen in the Middle East in the coming years.
Well if it is shitty it ain't that much different from otl, it just can be another kind of shit
Oh boy...I don't want to imagine what's going to happen in the Middle East in the coming years.
Hell, it worked out for the Soviets, since they could always point to the free and fair elections in Hungary to prove that they were all for these things. Never mind Poland, or Yugoslavia, or Romania, all still under their thumb....
But at least we got the Army out, even if they were still right on the border. That's probably the proudest moment of the administration.
-Retired Senator Roy Cohn (R-NY), quoted in Magic Kingdom: America In The 50s by Studs Terkel
It hit me then: The President was wrong. Of course it was crazy to be a communist. Of course it was the sign of a mental defect. I mean, maybe not when you're poor and uneducated, but when you're a successful professional? It's like being a fashion designer who advocates nudism, or a cop who advocates crime. Communism was a mental illness, and Kunstler was in a hospital getting treated for it. Beautiful.
Retired Senator Roy Cohn (R-NY), quoted in Magic Kingdom: America In The 50s by Studs Terkel
Oh my God!
How can you write a ATL and be so uninformed. Tito (and Yugoslavia with him) never listened to Stalin too much, and send him to hell and told to him fuck off in 1948. In 1948-1953 (and couple years afterward) Tito's Yugoslavia was so far outside of Soviet Sphere of influence that it looked like a dot. Even after normalization of relations in late 1950'es it was just light ecconomic cooperation and nothing more. Both in 1956. and 1968. Yugoslavia supported Hungary and Chekoslovakia as much as it safely could. Those two actualy wanted to be as "free" as Yugo was. Yugoslavia was communist, but pretty much neutral, it freaking founded the entire Non Aligned Movenment with Naser and Nehru. Ann while some idological reaproachment happend when Tito in his last years personaly was reverting to more "hard core" communism... well the rest of leadership and entire country wernt any more listening that much.
From late '60es and onwards you had significant personal economic liberties and rights, could travel to Evil Decadent Capitalist countries with very little fus... And even in '80es when ecconomy started dying from mismanagement and murderous IMF debt repayment schemes country was far closer to a consumer market ecconomy and society than any comunist country anywhere, ever. OK, 21st century China not counting.
I can't tell if the socialist newb was being serious or not, but he has a point, yugoslavia was far from being under Socialist control...
Of course, this is part of
So, we can say that since this guy is the one being quoted, he made the mistake and not the author of the TL...that's what we call an unreliable narrator, newbie
Indeed...
Now, seriously...
While the Johnson/Kennedy was predictable (that's what you get after three years dedicated to history and alt-history, you've seen it all...and then you get President Disney and President H-P Lovecraft and the such)...I will say that this is by far the most original dystopia set in the USA...
I will say the disney armbands might have been a tad too much...
Now, Socialist in Psychiatric institutions, anti-riot legislation, cartoon inspired youth movements that an actually hold political power and enforce censorship without much doubts about their constitutionality...well, the effort is really shown and appreciated
One hint when reading this specific timeline: Check the source of the information, and consider how he or she would see the situation. To Cohn, communism is communism is communism, and it can all be traced back to the Kremlin.
I will say the disney armbands might have been a tad too much...
Ah sorry then, haven't payed attention that it was Cohn signed under that and the implications on that...
"It was a lovely time to be alive. You had Elvis coming to Liverpool, and that was all that we needed to go stark raving mad. Think I put so much grease in my hair that I could have stood on my head and slid all the way to the Cavern Club to see him. Don't know how they managed to book the man, since he was the hottest ticket in England, no, in Europe. So I showed up with stars in my eyes and lust for the birds in my heart, but instead of making time with one of them, who should I meet but a young incorrigible named Paul. He refused to leave me alone when he found out that I played guitar, though to be fair, he says that I refused once I found out that he played guitar. It's all a bit murky, truth be told. But that's how we met up, as Elvis sang "Jailhouse Rock" on the stage above and the girls around us in the balcony screamed their lovely little lungs out."
-Musician John Lennon quoted in "Mods, Rockers, and Those Bloody Beatniks". Major Music Magazine, 12/10/94
Thinking ahead a little bit, you previously mentioned the "mental hygiene act of the 1960s." Now, unless there was some previous POD that armwaved away the 22nd amendment, Ol' Walt can't run again in '60- and by the account of things, probably shouldn't. So who the hell becomes President in 1960 and enforces the Mental Hygiene Acts? Can't be Cohn- there surely would've been some mention of it by now. On the other hand, the Acts sound like they're his baby and brainchild, so whoever does get elected to office probably is just as manipulated by Cohn as Walt has been.
Who the hell could that person be?
There are still people in 2009 who seriously argue that liberalism is a mental defect--they regularly make that claim at WorldNetDaily. So it's certainly not far-fetched that someone as shady as Roy Cohn would push the idea in the 1950s.Of course it was crazy to be a communist. Of course it was the sign of a mental defect. I mean, maybe not when you're poor and uneducated, but when you're a successful professional? It's like being a fashion designer who advocates nudism, or a cop who advocates crime. Communism was a mental illness, and Kunstler was in a hospital getting treated for it.
One thing I'm thinking about Elvis--without the need to tone himself down for the sake of American media, since he's persona non grata on American TV anyway, and without the manager he had in OTL, he may well show a more radical, hipster side of his music and his personality.Nice to hear Elvis and Lennon bit.
Why would that have to be an either/or? It's not like John's death in OTL had anything to do with Paul.I'm hoping we're gonna see a version of the Beatles, and Lennon's still alive in 1994? does that mean Paul's dead?
Why would that have to be an either/or? It's not like John's death in OTL had anything to do with Paul.