The documentary “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You” is a must see for ALL Americans
Norman Lear in “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You” [available at NetFlix] tells the story of a grandfather who frequently wrote letters addressed “Dearest Darling Mr. President” which inspired this American writer’s series of Dear Darling Letters
The 92 years young Lear still “won’t back down” in his dedication to “fight right-wing extremism and defend constitutional values including free expression, religious liberty, equal justice under the law, and the right to meaningfully participate in our democracy.”
PFAW: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going
Beginning in the 1970’s, Norman Lear brought millions of families together to watch boundary breaking sitcoms such as All in the Family, The Jeffersons and Maude which provided the first primetime voices of underrepresented Americans who made US laugh at our bigotry and prejudices and provoked us to ascend to higher ground.
In the documentary Lear shares how his early relationship with “the foolishness of the human condition” shaped his creative vision and led to political activism focused on protecting the First Amendment and the separation of church and state by founding “People For The American Way.”
“People For the American Way” was established to directly challenge the platform of the “Moral Majority” which was founded in 1979 by Jerry Falwell.
Falwell was the Fundamentalist Southern Baptist pastor who mobilized fundamentalist and conservative Christians into a political force known as the “Moral Majority” which dissolved in the late 1980’s.
“People For the American Way” continues to grow the “vision of a vibrantly diverse democratic society in which everyone is treated equally under the law, given the freedom and opportunity to pursue their dreams, and encouraged to participate in our nation’s civic and political life. Our America respects diversity, nurtures creativity and combats hatred and bigotry.”
In 2000, Lyn and Norman Lear purchased a rare, original copy of the Declaration of Independence with the goal of bringing “the people’s document” directly to the American people and it traveled to 100 cities in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia.
The Declaration of Independence begins:
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all [people] are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights…that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among [people] deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the RIGHT of the people to ALTER or to ABOLISH it.
In the extensively researched Leaving the Fold by Edward T. Babinski, a former Roman Catholic evangelical fundamentalist we learn:
According to some fundamentalist groups, only THEY are true Christians, and only THEY are going to heaven, while the rest of the world’s ‘so-called’ Christians, including those in other fundamentalist groups, are going to hell…
According to a Gallup poll taken around 1989, ‘31 percent of Americans believe the Bible is the ‘actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word.’ That’s nearly one out of every three Americans…
Characteristic of all fundamentalism is that it has found absolute certainty-the certainty of class warfare…or the literal certainty of the Bible…
Fundamentalism is a terminal form of human consciousness in which development is stopped, eliminating the uncertainty and risk that real growth entails…
Learn more:
American Christian Fundamentalism and Donald Trump’s Triumph
Dear Darling Jared Kushner and Observer Media
The Final Chapter
- Vanunu still has more nuclear secrets to spill, Israeli court declares - December 29, 2021
- 9/11 and a 20th Reflection of That Day - September 5, 2021
- Mordechai Vanunu: Final Annual Update and this Writers Next Steps - June 19, 2021