Now that I have your attention (or Catholics' attention, at least)...
In 1947, as the Cold War dawned, the Catechetical Guild of St. Paul, Minnesota published Is this Tomorrow: America Under Communism! It's a graphic snapshot of the paranoia that marked those years.
The Roman Catholic church in the U.S. was most concerned about religious persecution, of course, but the Catechetical Guild used the comic's plot to weave a tapestry of fear -- racial strife, confiscation of guns, indoctrination in the schools, dictatorial rule and more.
Fundamentally, Is This Tomorrow collected everything that Liberty-loving post-war Americans were afraid of -- rightly so -- and ascribed it all to a bogeyman called "Communism."
If the Catholic guild's extremist strategy sounds familiar, it should.
In our own time, Liberty is under siege. Yes, the threats are real. Our challenge is to think critically about what we face, to separate facts from fears and to act in the best interest of the country we love.
[By the way, Pappy's Golden Age Blogzine has posted scans of all 52 pages of Is This Tomorrow -- click here.]
