I think we need to keep in mind that the social managers at the turn of last century were far more candid then they are now. I'm not sure why, I think it was fear of immigrants and the degeneration racial hygiene that made it acceptable to tell everyone that they were creating a planned economy along with a social class system that resembled Anglican England.
People had to be kept in their place.
With that being said, I can see where the thought that at the turn of last century, things were far more oppressive, that their was MORE stratification among the classes. This just isn't the case. People had far more social mobility then they do now for the simple fact that their dollars were worth more and they were able to do more things without the modern serfdom society places on families.
Furthermore, our "wonderful" leaders like FDR, JFK and LBJ weren't as wonderful as they would seem on the surface. For example, people credit FDR with ending the depression, when in fact, the depression ended with the Federal Reserve increased the money supply with "debt money" in order to fund WWII. Under the auspices of the depression, however, FDR had the federal government seize all of the gold that American's owned, forcing them into the fiat system of currency...which was controlled by the private corporation that is known as the Federal Reserve.
All of this goes on and on and on and its very Machiavellian. The bottom line is that both sides of modern political spectrum are being played like puppets. We see one thing and the press shouts "rah rah rah!" meanwhile a completely different thing is really happening.
So, why don't Americans know more about this? For one thing, I think it should be noted that the major textbook publishers, like Houghton Mifflin, are being funded by foundations controlled by people like the Carnagies, Rockefellars, Morgans, Astors, etc. This was especially clear at the turn of the century when these foundations were spending more money on education then the government. Now, it is far more diffuse. Yet the material is the same. Even to the point where it has gotten so bold as to suggest to the government that we have high stakes History...oh wait, that term was changed at the turn of the century to "social studies"...Test.
What do most people call government approved history?
Propaganda.
Anyway, I agree with the gist of what Tellner is saying, but I think that its stilted toward the left/right hegelian rhetoric that people need to start seeing through. Our entire country, since the "civil war" has been manipulated by a leviathen of financial interests that have no regard for anyone but people like themselves. The founding fathers fought this battle and were somewhat successful in holding them off. They established a central bank in the US and Andrew Jackson killed it. Not before they tried to kill him...twice. Then came Lincoln, who issued the Greenbacks, he nearly took back the ultimate power of producing currency until he was killed. From that point on, the state grew larger and more prominent, even to the point where they could order a family to deliver its children into its grasp. (BTW - JFK suggested that secret societies should not be tolerated in a democracy that government should print the money...look it up.)
Jeckel's Island, Federal Reserve, Income Tax, voila...a nation of paupers. A nation consumed by debt on purpose. A nation undermined by Usury, a sin decried by the Bible, which is claimed by some to be the founding document that this country rests upon.
That is the very essence of Orwellian doublethink.
