The Syfy Channel is running its usual holiday marathon of reruns from the original "The Twilight Zone". One of the reruns from the show early this morning was named "It's Alive". It starred Dennis Hopper as Peter Vollmer - a neurotic neo-Nazi.
Peter Vollmer thinks he hears and sees Adolf Hitler and in his zeal to imitate the man takes the advice of Adolf Hitler and holds rallies to fight imigration, civil rights, and issues from the 60's.
But, many of those hatreds displayed on the show by the aspiring neo-Nazi seem to be prevalent today. When Barack Obama became President, suddenly, rallies and demonstators show up out of the woodwork following the advice of another neurotic with a wide reach. His name Glenn Beck. Even though, Beck doesn't overtly say things that are racist, he covertly hides behinds slogans for his teabaggers and switches the blame on, non-other, than the President himself by calling the Barack Obama a racist with a deep-seated hatred of white people.
The character on show lived for the applause and admiration of others, something he apparently did not receive growing, up. Glenn Beck apparently had lots of issues growing up too and, based on his TV show, would do anything for applause and admiration also.
Eventually, the neo-nazi kills an elderly Jew (a survivor of Dachau) who actually took care of him growing up, but rediculed him at a neo-Nazi rally. At the end of the show, Rod Serling announces that Adolf Hitler is alive. He is alive in the hearts and minds of people all across this country who are bigots and let themselves be led by the hatred of others. It is also interesting to note that according to the IMDB website http://www.imdb.com/... that show produced more hate-mail against The Twilight Zone than any other.
It is shocking for me to see a show that is over 46 years old that displays many of the prejeudices that exist today. If those issues were so well documented so many years ago, why are they still here today, Where is the progress that I thought we had made? But the same hateful people are around and try to push others around. Why do people not change? Why is there so much hate? Now I understand the teabagger slogans- "I want my country back!" Maybe things are starting to change because it is soemthing that they want back...