We are never at peace anymore.
Wartime restrictions are being instituted across every segment of society & culture.
Even at the height of the Cold War there were mainstream, popular, & ruthless satires of the great bureaucratic, military, & corporate powers.
Yup. This situation isn’t new; the same total control happened during Wilson.
There’s an important difference between justified wars and evil wars. USA has fought exactly one justified war in its entire fucked history. WW2 didn’t have satires because everyone knew that we needed to defend the borders against the Japs, who had ACTUALLY AND GENUINELY ATTACKED US. All the other wars, from 1776 to “virus”, were unnecessary, rigged up by the Deepstate of the time to boost the power and evil of Deepstate. In those situations the satirists were mostly working for Deepstate. Always Machiavelli.
The situation in the ’50s was unusual because Deepstate wasn’t fully in control yet. Deepstate conquered Truman IMMEDIATELY after FDR died, and was consolidating its power via HUAC on one front and the NGOs and media on another front. Ike had enough inside bullypower to push back Deepstate for 8 years. After Ike was out of power, JFK/Nixon was waiting to finish the job. A coin flip gave the job to the JFK end of the JFK/Nixon pushme-pullyou first. The Nixon end had to wait its turn.
What Kirn misses is the motivation and control source for those satirists and folk singers in the 60s. They were working for CIA. They were the negative end of pushme-pullyou. Their job was to make opposition look dirty and disreputable, and they succeeded.
Polistra's Mill 