One of the few advantages of living in a particular teensy little North Alabama, aside from the fun to be had late at night at the local Super Wal-Mart, is that it is home to a unique little business venture called the Unclaimed Baggage Center. Essentially, what the airlines saw as an enormous problem, a local businessman saw as a giant opportunity. After the airlines have exhausted what effort they can in reconnecting baggage to its owner, they sell whatever’s left over to the Unclaimed Baggage Center at a flat rate…a few bucks per pound, regardless of the content.
Unclaimed Baggage then sells whatever they get at fairly ridiculously low prices. Essentially, imagine an enormously overgrown pawn shop, and you pretty much have it. Clothes, electronics, jewelry, musical equipment, CD’s, and every possible thing in between (including, of course, mounds of luggage) find its way onto the warehouse floor.
I stop there several times a week, as the possibility of finding genuinely great stuff is quite high. I recently bought a cedar-topped classical guitar in perfect condition, with a hardshell case for just over $100, and their luggage, notoriously expensive anywhere else, is almost a liability there, so they get rid of it for a few dollars a bag.
The other fun thing is seeing what bizarre items show up from one day to the next. Trying to imagine just how a fist-sized uncut emerald showed up there without its owner recouping it from the airline first is a lot of fun. Was it smuggled? Illegal? Or did the airline just bungle unforgiveably?
The latest thing I saw there, which I actually bought in anticipation of a fascinating look at Cold War psychology at its very most paranoid, is a set of 8 LP’s, tucked away on a shelf among 9000 scratched copies of Christina Aguilera’s first CD. They were produced between approximately 1963 and 1970, and constitute rabid anti-Communist propaganda from an ultra-right-wing, libertarian and republican perspective. One is even built around a rabid ultra-right-wing, anti-Communist MORMON point of view. They were a dollar apiece, and while a couple of them came in plain, white covers, several others are quite descriptive.
I am no fan of hipster pop culture ironic humor. It’s very easy to look back on the culture of the past and see it as naive or humor, while simultaneously feeling oh-so-worldly and urbane here in the present. Whenever I feel that way, I remember what James Lileks once said (paraphrased,) “If you think past pop culture was funny, imagine what kids a few decades from now are going to make of the phrase, ‘May Cause Anal Leakage.’” So, while it may be tempting to listen to these records with an ironic ear, I think I’d rather try to get something out of them…a historical perspective if nothing else.
I would love to link to some of the album graphics, since they’re absolutely classic, but my scannerless state (and the incompatibility of LP’s on modern flat-bed scanners) makes that problematic. Unfortunately, I don’t presently have a working turntable either, but until I do, some of the copy on the albums sleeves should be revealing enough:
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[li]All in the Name of Poverty, 1966. Plain, unmarked cover.[/li]
[li]Who Controls Our Foreign Relations?, 1970. Plain, unmarked cover.[/li][/ul]
The following three albums come from a Libertarian (the still-extant Foundation for Economic Education) series of at least 9 records, and I wish I had all of them:
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[li]Album 5, The Tariff Idea, no date, but the book The Tariff Idea was published by FEE in 1952. By Dr. W.M. Curtiss. The copy on the front reads, “This idea - that one function of the political agency is to confer an economic advantage on some men at the expense of their neighbors - underlies every socialistic practice.” Note that the record appears to be a Libertarian primer on trade tariffs, but that the author couches his arguments in terms of anti-Communism. This theme is repeated in the other records as well.[/li]
[li]Album 7, Mainspring and I, Pencil, no date. By Leonard E. Read (the founder of FEE.) “Excerpts from The Mainspring of Human Progress. This fascinating book is dedicated to the principle that only free men can make effective use of their imaginations and creative abilities. The second side of this record is an ordinary lead pencil’s story of the miracle of its being.” If you wonder, as I did, just how what a lead pencil may have to do with the fictional autobiography “I, Claudius” (except perhaps that “I, Pencil” apparently came first,) I’m still working under the assumption that the answer is, “eh, not much.” I’ll let you know if it turns out otherwise. Anyway, the “about the author” blurb on the back contains the following expansion of the “I, Pencil” theme: “On the other side (of the record,) [Mr. Read] is narrator for a lead pencil, as it unfolds the miracle of the market coordination of human efforts behind its creation.”[/li]
[li]Album 9, Is Economic Freedom Possible?, no date. By Dr. Benjamin A. Rogge. “A careful examination of the charge that a free society would be controlled by a private monopoly.” You can bet your booty that somewhere in his examination of the “private monopoly,” Communist governments show up.[/li][/ul]
Even more interesting than the copy on the fronts of these albums, from a propaganda perspective, is the “recommended reading” list on the back. It includes things like “Cliches of Socialism,” (“Socialistic bromides or plausibilities, like ‘The more complex the society, the more government control we must have,’ constantly confront the believer in freedom.”) Libertarianism from before the rise of Hippie-era American Liberalism. Fascinating stuff.
The next two records are undated, but they are so rabidly anti-Communist that they fairly scream “early 60’s.” They were released on Key Records, which still distributes “Christian indie music.”
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[li]Here We Go Again, With Tom Anderson The cover art on this one consists of a bullseye with a Soviet hammer and sickle in the center, with an arrow, presumably representing the scathing wit of Mr. Anderson, standing out from it. “Anyone who entertained a single doubt concerning Tom Anderson’s rating as the outstanding political satirist of our time certainly saw that doubt dispelled as Tom’s first record album “BI-PARTISAN TREASON” rocketed to fame. …You’ll quake with laughter in response to its pungent, pertinent humor, its verbal darts, puncturing the trial balloons of burgeoning dictatorship. And - if you believe that the blossoms on a peach tree, the gentle warmth of the sun and the marvel of a new-born baby emanate from a source more lofty than the test tubes of welfare-state chemists, you’ll never lose the memory of [/li]Tom’s description of his visit to a Moscow church.”
Incidentally, Tom Anderson is still apparently a popular mega-right-wing columnist and lecturer, affiliated with the so-right-it’s-left American Party.
[li]“Not Hate, But Love”, by Ezra Taft Benson. Mr. Benson, Eisenhower’s Secretary of Agriculture, and latter-day President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, recorded this screed to counteract the Communist technique of “twisting the meaning of words so as to make that which is sinister appear to be attractive.” The back copy, written by “ex-FBI counterspy” Karl Prussion (and God, I would love to hear that album. Note that it is also published by Key Records) is positively vicious. I’d love to copy the whole thing for you, but I’m too lazy. Here are some highlights:[/li][quote]
…[T]he Red Fascists know that a typical patriotic American would never fall for the word “surrender.” So, in its place, the Communist Conspiracy substituted the words “Peaceful Coexistence.” Knowing that most Americans desire peace, the Kremlin strategists apply the label of peace to a bottle containing the poison of slavery.
Recently, we have witnessed a classic example of Soviet thought-control in our own nation. So effective has been the Moscow-directed anti-anti-Communist campaign in the United States that these “Masters of Deceit” have actually convinced a large cross-section of our people that the word “love” means “hate.”
The order of the day for all Communists, and, lamentably, for the vanguard of so-called American “Liberals,” is to neutralize American patriotism. In short, they can’t Sovietize you until they de-Americanize you.
Ezra Taft Benson is not about to stand by meekly and submit to the surrender of our heritage, our liberty, our destiny. For the love of our nation, our God and our freedom, listen to what he says and let it inspire you to do what you know you must do. The hour is late.
[/quote]
Wow.
[li]Let Your Voice Be Heard, 1966. This is a record of an address by none other than the notorious Phyllis Schlafly. The record even comes with a letter of endorsement from Mrs. Ann Bowler, the National Committeewoman for California and Program Chairman, California Federation for Republican Women, written on Republican National Committee letterhead. The copy on the record sleeve is not particularly revealing, but the entire thing positively reeks of “Here’s something for the gals. Play it during te next Garden Club party.”[/li]
[li]Echoes from the Cathedral, no date. This is “the first souvenir album released of the sounds of the Cathedral of the Christian Crusade, the hub of Christian Conservative activity in America.” The Cathedral, in case the name doesn’t ring a bell, was (and still is) the work of one Billy James Hargis, staunch anti-Communist and anti-Liberal pedagogue, and fundamentalist wacko super-extraordinaire. The program includes a service complete with music (God Bless America, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, I Will Pilot Thee, and another rendition of “God Bless America” as sung by Hargis’s (very young) son, Billy James Hargis II,) a short devotional message, and a full sermon (entitled “Ambassadors for Christ”) by the Right Reverend Billy James hisseff.[/li]
The rest of the copy is amazing in itself, but the blurb below the title on the back cover sums it up nicely - “Echoes From the Cathedral puts you THERE - at Billy James Hargis’ International Headquarters! Hear the heartbeat of Christian Crusade - ‘For Christ-Against Communism.’”
Also note the sentence at the bottom of the linked web page, where it says “He is credited, along with his friend for over 30 years, Dr. Carl McIntyre, as having given birth to the ‘Christian Right’ and bringing back ‘Christian Fundamentalism’ to America at the close of World War II.”
[/ul]
Thanks Billy James, you enormous tool.