this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2023
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So once again I'm tempted to hue and cry about Behind The Bastard's two parter on how capitalism totally ate Christianity. (On YouTube: Part One, Part Two, note that these are ad-free if you've successfully ad-blocked YouTube)
During the great depression (1920s-1930s) preachers were as left-wing as Marx and were totally into feeding the hungry and clothing the poor and stuff, but that all was about to change.
Hoover was great for the industrialists, who were making serious bank, and even buying banks. They actually liked that the population was living in cardboard boxes and dining on shoe leather and flour paste (and dying of malnutrition). It built character! But the people were getting lean and hungry and despite missteps by the Leninists over in the Soviet Union, whatever they were doing had to be better than this. So much of the US was thinking of Octobering some Revolution themselves.
The industrialists, in the meantime liked the other guy and were thinking of taking some NatSoc tips and Putting on the Reich over here in the States.
FDR instigated the New Deal to slow down discontent from burning down the US federal government. Which mostly pissed off the industrialists.
James W. Fifield Jr. enters the chat. He's in super debt for erecting a huge chapel in Los Angeles, the very first megachurch. He finds that he can make bank by telling rich people they don't have to follow all that feed the poor nonsense based on his interpretation of the bible. This, they realize, is a fabulous idea, and this heralds the beginnings of a massive PragerU style propaganda campaign (targeting children, and later, religious ministers) to convince people that unregulated capitalism is actually good, and communism is a clear and present danger to the spirit of America.
At first it's pretty bad, but in time it convinces more people, at least people who want to believe they too will be on the gravy train and one of the elites. It all eventually leads us here, where we're polluting the species to death and the MAGAs are on the warpath, but this was intended by Ford, Disney, Westinghouse, Koch and all those crew.