I experienced a moment of what I suppose you could call cognitive dissonance this afternoon. More below the squiggle.
Today, I did my part to boost the economy and the tourism industry and visited the Amana Colonies in Eastern Iowa. What are the Amana Colonies? Well, today they're largely a tourist attraction, with a few small museums, some shops, some local craftsmen, some bed and breakfasts, etc. There is some interesting history there, but more on that in a bit.
We were frequenting one of the shops that had a mix of locally made items and touristy items, and I noticed two framed prints on the wall behind the counter. One was of Obama looking out at the viewer, holding the Constitution in one hand while pointing at it with the other. The Constitution is on fire in the print, with about a quarter of it consumed by the flames. The title? "One Nation Under Socialism".
The second was of a man in modern dress sitting on a bench with his head in his hands to one side of the print. Obama stands ignoring the man on the other side, while a crowd of men dressed in 18th century garb (presumably Founding Fathers, but I couldn't see it well enough to ID anyone specific) trying to get Obama's attention and gesticulating toward the distraught man on the bench. The title was "The Forgotten Man".
Subtle, right? I've looked these up and they are by an artist named Jon McNaughton (not a local, obviously).
I was fairly pissed off by the prints, but the first one actually just about had me laughing out loud. Why? Because it was such a dissonant message to the history of the Amana Colonies.
The Amanas were a German religious group that splintered off from the Lutheran Church in the early 1700's. Eventually, tired of religious persecution, the immigrated to New York in the 1840's and then moved to Iowa in the 1850's to found the Amana Colonies, a cluster of seven villages in eastern Iowa.
The Amanas formed a communal society, to the point where the homes didn't even have kitchens in them and everyone dined together in a communal hall. The Amana Society (the formal incorporation of the group, run by a board of trustees) owned the land and the industries, and the members farmed the land and operated the businesses on behalf of the Society. Members were given allowances for living expenses out of the Society's funds and other resources disbursed likewise.
The Amanas operated as this communal society until the 1930's when a combination of misfortunes forced them to reconsider how they colonies were run. First, the community's woolen mill, a major source of revenue for the colonies, was severely damaged by fire. Second, the Great Depression reduced demand for all the colonys' products. Added to this was the fact that many younger members were chafing under the restrictions placed on daily life. In the end, the church members voted to separate the religious and economic activities of the colonies and largely end the communal way of life. The communal dining halls closed and homes that had never even had a kitchen now added one.
Today, much of the Amana Colony's attraction is based upon it's history -- the museums display that history, many of the buildings date to that time, and many of the shops and businesses operate out of those buildings, and many of the businesses either manufacture their own goods or sell locally made goods to some degree.
So I felt it was indeed a rich irony to see "One Nation Under Socialism" displayed for sale by one of these businesses. Given the Right Wing's spasms of horror over the mere thought of concepts like socialism and communism, I'd hate to see what they'd make of people like the original founders of the Amana Colonies. I certainly had difficulty understanding how a business owner making a living in the very heart of the Colonies and whose very business depended on the tourist trade generated by the unique history of the area could have that print on display.