Where there was no water

Every year, theoretically during the school year, most often after, I write "Big Views" of the history that I have learned. I am only now completing my Big Views from last year   ...*sigh*
Anyway, here is my Big View for the middle bit of the 1900's- and here is a challenge :-). Can you figure out why I named it "Where there was no water"? Mom couldn't. This /may/ help you: the phrase is modified from Ps. 63:1.
Sorry for the length-I stink at summaries and there's a lot to summarize :-)-but hopefully you'll enjoy it. I enjoy writing them, as they're my most informal writings, and I get a chance to play with words :-)

Several died; many were devastated in the aftermath of Black Friday and Tuesday in 1929. All of the investing done in real estate and stocks came rolling off the mountain peaks, crushing homes and livelihoods on the way. Credit had flowed freely; speculation had been rampant; inflation (though also rampant in the fiat economy) had been unnoticed; fun had been for the asking – but now it was over. With no jobs and no homes, families moved into “Hoovervilles” as they derogatorily referred to them. Others, such as the Okies (Oklahoma residents impoverished by the Dust Bowl), moved to other states in hopes of finding work. Partially as a result of Hoover’s reassurances and promises, and partly because of a changing national mood, they began to blame the government (Hoover, the president, in particular) for their problems, and to demand a solution. When Hoover moved cautiously, citizens elected FDR-not once, not twice, but four times! Charged with such a mandate to govern, FDR passed the most sweeping, government-increasing legislation package so far in history. Most of this was government work programs, but he set up the ideological foundation for the current burgeoning welfare state by implying that each had a right to a livelihood.


But the Great Depression was not limited to the United States. The entire world experienced an economic slump around that time, most notably Germany. The global dryness – physically, economically, emotionally, and spiritually – provided perfect platforms for many types of governmental “reform,” such as FDR’s liberal policies, and, most notably, Hitler’s rise to power.

Franklin Roosevelt, or FDR, as he is almost better known, liked alphabet soup – or so we must deduce. Given his “Alphabet Agencies,” and all the hot water he’s gotten us into, I should hope so… he has a lot to stomach! :-) FDR is most famous, probably, for his first hundred days, when he revitalized the hope of the nation – the nation’s hope in government, may it be noted – by passing bill upon bill, creating jobs, unemployment insurance, and government responsibility to provide for the welfare of the people, all based shakily on the Constitutional mandate that the government “ensure domestic tranquility” and “promote the general welfare.” Of the “Alphabet Agencies” (so called because they were often referred to by their initials) established by Roosevelt’s “New Deal,” the most well-known and/or enduring are the WPA (Works Projects Administration, for jobs), TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority, the same), FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, to insure bank deposits), and FCC (Federal Communications Commission, established to regulate radio). However, his most important legacies were the new welfare state and the new Democratic Party. Previously, the Democrats had been constructionists, small-government, small-budget, though that had begun to change as first Teddy Roosevelt then Woodrow Wilson had taken the reins of power. FDR brought it full circle, associating Democrats with just the opposite: loose interpretation of the “living” Constitution, big government, and enormous budgets.

Hitler’s rise to power was also propelled by the Depression, which was exacerbated in Germany by the enormous war debt. He gave the people a scapegoat: something (or rather someones) to blame for their troubles – first the weak German provisional government, who accepted Versailles, then their enemies, who imposed the treaty, then the Jews, for prospering – add to that his oratorical skills, and the Germans couldn’t have enough of him. For those who could, and did, well, there was a solution for that, too: WWI ‘patriots’ who still wanted to fight (in other words, thugs). It was primarily with their help that Hitler reached the power he did, until the reluctant chancellor felt forced to make Hitler his second-in-command, and Germany’s fate, and the fate of the world, was sealed.

Once the chancellor died, leaving Hitler in control, Hitler consolidated his power, then began slowly-but-surely disobeying the Treaty of Versailles. First, he stopped paying off the debt. Then he began accumulating weapons and developing new technologies and infrastructure to support it. Then, emboldened by the ostrich mentality of world leaders (wait-isn’t it babies who say ‘if I can’t see it, it’s not there’?), he made bolder moves, occupying territory after territory until finally the other nations were forced to act. The Second World War had begun. Germany and Japan, the two main Axis powers, had initial victory over Britain, France, Russia, and a conglomeration of various other insignificant countries. America, stung out of its tranquil apathy by the Pearl Harbor attacks, joined midwar, while British fortitude plus Hitler cockiness equaled the first German defeat in the Battle of Britain. Eventually, mostly through stolid, plodding determination – and some good leadership, at the Battle of the Bulge, for instance – the war was won. America dropped the A-bombs on Japan and forced their surrender, and WWII was over. America partied in the streets, eagerly awaiting the return of the later-termed “Greatest Generation,” as the rest of the world settled in for the long journey back to prosperity… a journey that did not end up taking as long as expected because of American benevolence, aka the Marshall Plan. The United Nations, as its post-WWI precursor the League of Nations, proclaimed a new era of peace and prosperity, with international conflict peaceably discussed and dispersed through its diplomacy. And it almost seemed to be coming true.

Unanimously though unspokenly voted the great world power, America basked in prosperity. Sure, the transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy was a bit rough, but the Marshall Plan’s devotion of billions of dollars to the economies of the nations devastated by WWII (many of them our former enemies!) also created new markets for our goods. Advances in science and medicine made us feel masters of our personal universes. Returning soldiers went to college on the GI bill, then married and had kids, bringing on a baby BOOM that reverberated through the rest of the century and beyond. But that was hardly anticipated during the golden 50’s, as those who had scrimped and ‘made do’ for all of their lives (first because of the Depression, then because of the war) enjoyed the freedom to do about what they’d like and give their children the childhood they had dreamed of. Unfortunately, this letting loose and letting be would reap bitter fruit in the years to come.

But even in the golden 50’s, all was not right with the world. Elvis, and the beatniks, would prove to be harbingers of future disillusionment and sensuality. Wartime allies became peacetime rivals as the US and the USSR competed for the title of ‘Superpower’ in a cosmic pageant where all the world was the stage. Not so friendly competition began as the USSR launched Sputnik then sustained a man in space. JFK promised “man on the moon by the end of the decade,” defining a race the US could – and did - win despite the early Russian lead. Meanwhile, the Russians rushed to develop their own nuclear weapons to rival America’s. Once they did, assurance of mutual destruction (MAD) by nuclear weapons kept the two superpowers from open war, but cold war made the Doom Clock tick toward midnight more than once.

Korean War, Vietnam War, U-2 scandal, Cuban Missile Crisis, containment, Berlin Wall, Polish army base, Chinese diplomacy, Iron Curtain, backyard bomb shelters, conflict in Afghanistan… this was the stuff of the Cold War. Maneuvering, manipulation, posturing, presentation – never open war but never total peace, as Russia armed and embittered her proxies to fight America, first in the Korean War (1950-1953). A fairly insignificant border dispute, when charged with the static between the US and the USSR, plus the Communist-but-not-Stalinist China, zapped all involved. Although the US (technically the UN) began victorious in its aid of South Korea, General MacArthur pushed nearly to the Chinese border, inciting a Chinese backlash that drove the UN forces back deep into South Korea and home in disgrace after a cease-fire. Truman, president at the time, was forced to reprimand MacArthur, even while the general was winning, which destroyed Truman politically. The Chinese felt forced to act before their military was organized and trained, straining the system. And of course, Korea was devastated.

Meanwhile, the infant Israel, born in the hard labor of World War II, fought, fought, and fought again for its chance at supremacy in the Holy Land. All the nations surrounding Israel vowed themselves to holy war while all the nations who promised it help stood paralyzed by the Arab nations’ control over their jugular: oil. Authorities knew the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) could organize an embargo that would seriously hurt the US (it did, in 1973). Therefore, in all the wars Israel faced – Independence War (1948-1949), Sinai-Suez War (1967), 6-Day War (1967) and Yom Kippur War (1973) – it was alone. Yet somehow it triumphed, and became stronger, and renowned – God must have been on its side. Unfortunately, the world as a whole went the other way…