Time for another review/renew series. Five parts from top to bottom.
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The New Deal set up dozens of overlapping agencies at first, then gradually simplified the arrangement. In other words, FDR didn’t allow Parkinson; didn’t let agencies create problems to guarantee growth. Unneeded agencies were removed or merged. Bureaucrats were forced against their will to SOLVE PROBLEMS.
Most of these agencies ended up as part of the WPA in name or in reality, and all of their products are remembered generically as WPA, without trying to separate the funding and authority of the various names.
The National Youth Administration was one of the originals; later it blended with CCC. The 1941 final report of the NYA tells us why the New Deal was focused on WORK, not PAY, and why this focus was crucially needed at a time when REAL PROBLEMS were causing REAL REVOLUTIONS.
Providing young people with sound employment, representative of a cross-section of contemporary American commerce, industry, and agriculture, was in keeping with the best tradition of American life. From Benjamin Franklin on down, American young people had learned trades, unit skills, the banking business, store clerking, garage work, railroading or what have you, through actually going to work and learning through doing.
When such opportunities became limited in the process of economic development and subsequent depression years, the vast majority of citizen leaders found the NYA method desirable, and led in the organizing of such work for young people in their communities.
Why was a New Deal needed? The report runs a detailed comparison between Europe and US after WW1, with special attention to the form and style of youth movements in Germany and Russia.
How the youth problem in extremis became a concern of national governments was demonstrated by the regimented lengths to which the Nazi and Fascist governments went to control the mental and physical development of youth for nationalistic ambitions and in so doing usurped to a major degree the influences of the home, the school, and the church. These countries, particularly Germany, were so effective in their psychological, educational, and military methods with the younger generation that they were prepared to subdue the continent of Western Europe, and subsequently to challenge the power of democratic peoples throughout the world . In these Fascist countries, government controlled youth programs, as well as government controlled youth organizations, were designed instruments to inculcate and perpetuate the political ideology of the Nazi and Fascist Party Leaders.
What was special about Germany?
Hitler Youth were required to give complete obedience not only to Hitler, as supreme leader, but to other national leaders and to the leaders in the different grades in the entire hierarchy above the individual young person. The organization was strongly nationalistic, dominated by the Nazi doctrine of racial purity. Emphasis was placed on physical achievement and bodily fitness rather than on intellectual prowess. Young people were attracted by the uniform, marching, public display, hiking, and sports activities.
Of course Krauts are always marching together in perfect UNISON, precisely obeying the personal orders of the ruler down to the 7124th decimal place. Kraut genes are constant, Hitler was a variable. Hitler simply overlaid his ideologies on the goose-stepping Kraut genes.
Russians don’t have the mechanical synchromesh gene. As Henry Ford found, Russians are even less sync-able than Americans. So Lenin had to aim his youth movements in a different way, focusing on serving the country instead of obeying the god-like leader.
A strong youth movement has always been a part of the Soviet Union’s program. The Soviet Union believed that its future depended largely upon its youth. Great strides have been made in the educational system to reduce illiteracy. In the case of university students, large numbers have been enabled to take university courses through a system of special allowances paid either by the government or by the administrative bodies for which the students expected to work upon completing their courses. In 1935, it was estimated that approximately 80 percent of the university students were receiving allowances to enable them to live while studying.
All youth organizations in the Soviet Union are included in one organization — the Communist Union of Youth, which is open to young people 15 to 26 years of age who are loyal to the Soviet Government. The Communist Union of Youth was formed at an all-Russian congress of youth organizations in October 1918 and retained its organizational structure with a few modifications and additions until 1936, when it drew up an entirely new program and statutes. The period of reconstruction in Russia was considered as over, and the Communist Union of Youth now directed its effort toward the filling of the tremendous needs of industry and agriculture for trained and well-educated workers.
The Soviet focus on training was constant from 1936 to 1990. In those years we were steadily moving AWAY from training and into memorizing nonsensical theories and fake “facts”. Sputnik allegedly woke us up, but we responded by moving EVEN FASTER into bizarre and useless memorized theories.
The New Deal was closer to the Russian model, focusing on SKILL TRAINING at all levels, and aiming to help the country. The NYA/CCC trained youngsters while using and paying for their labor. WPA trained adults while using and paying for their labor. The agriculture programs trained farmers while subsidizing their products to protect them from the murderous futures markets.
Polistra's Mill 