Message in Washington, D.C., July 28, 1922; message to Washington, D.C. today.

Don’t let the tea party-ers or republicans fool you: the hold-up on the debt ceiling has nothing to do with balancing the budget or creating smaller, less intrusive government. Despite running on such slogans, or “jobs,” those who were swept into office also swept in their own dirty under-the-rug ideologue agendas. Look at restrictions on abortion, for example. Fear, misogyny and racism rule; using legislation to create more government intrusion to benefit wealthy white men. Meanwhile, these elected conservative officials pass on the lies and deny the reality of the Bush tax cuts which, by the way, blew-through Clinton’s surplus and, along with deregulation and cronyism, created this mess.

Other shades and shadows from the 1920s which are today’s boogeymen:

• Prohibition of alcohol occurs in the United States. Prohibition in the United States began January 16, 1919, with the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S.Constitution, and it continued throughout the 1920s. Prohibition was finally repealed in 1933. Organized crime turns to smuggling and bootlegging of liquor, led by figures such as Al Capone, boss of the Chicago Outfit.
• The Immigration Act of 1924 places restrictions on immigration. National quotas curbed most Eastern and Southern European nationalities, further enforced the ban on immigration of East Asians, Indians and Africans, and put mild regulations on nationalities from the Western Hemisphere (Latin Americans).
• Growth and general acceptance of the Ku Klux Klan in America.
• The Scopes Trial (1925) which declared that John T. Scopes had violated the law by teaching evolution in schools, creating tension between the competing theories of creationism and evolution.

Photo via Library Of Congress.