freedom river

Via Kottke, we are directed towards a 1971 animated parable narrated by Orson Welles that illustrates how creeping intolerance (metaphorically and in tandem with actual erosion and ruination) undermines democracy and the exercise of liberty that attends free and fair societies.
Some of the script is a bit reductive and jingoistic and there’s an underlying current of patriotism American-style that reflects the milieu of fear at the time with the Vietnam War and the Nixon administration, but the overall message is as resonant today as it was back then, the inuring forces of regression and xenophobia as much of a threat to be vigilant against as they were nearly fifty years ago.