to everyone. Why not?

Coal miners? Sharecroppers? Asbestos workers? Which white men?

I was that quick!! Perfect response. My small farmer grandfather did not pine for a return of the 50's.

of course.

Unearned and at the cost of the rights of others. No thanks

...and that included (mostly white) men from all walks of life, and helped to create a big and strong middle class that many people benefited from.

Of course there were many things that were bad about the 50s. Social issues have evolved hugely since then. But in many economic areas we have seen things go backwards. We have a smaller middle class, a hardening of class lines, an outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, an increase in rapacious financial entities such as payday lenders, and higher income inequality than even during the Gilded Age, just to name a few.

The practices of credit card companies these days would have been illegal in the 50s, when there were still laws against usury. The population of this country is milked by the elites, whether by paying more for drugs than people in other countries -- due to laws passed by our very own Congress -- or by getting poorer Internet service for their money than any European country -- often again there are laws preventing municipalities from providing these services themselves -- these are just two examples, there are many others.

So yes, some things really were better in the 50s. Recognizing that fact does not make me nostalgic for the era and its racial and gender inequalities, sorry.

So stop enabling them

I agree with you.

for those claiming to be "progressives."

- would have included it but I'm a chicken shit and Hillary may be the last hope. Lord help us all

No one's obsessing about the 50's when those times are completely remembered and not stereotyped.

Berners don't buy Clinton politics, true, but I think that if she projects a kind of Eisenhower politics, that was politics that was willing to work with FDR Democrats without rancor.

There was a time in the 50's when political opponents did work on projects for the betterment of the American people.

Then came the Powell Memo and capitalist insurgency against democratic spending.

just to add to it.. it was GOD awful for so many families.. and I was in MPLS in the early 70's when we won the freedom for women who are married to not be committed to asylums by their husbands for nothing.. did not need a diagnosis of anything..just his say so.. not so very long ago.. so few rights... but the 50's were great for white males.. that lived through the draft of Korea and Vietnam.. hell married women could not get birth control without their husbands permission.. good riddance indeed!!

at the middle and high school cafeteria. Lunch was 25 cents. She always had a stack of quarters in her pocket. Kids whose parents couldn't pay for those lunches knew that she'd use one of her quarters for them with nothing more than a smile for the kid.

No money...No lunch in the 50s. Lots of kids would have gone hungry. Nobody cared. Well, almost nobody.

I remember that.. Being in 3rd grade and all your classmates around you have lunch.. while you watch.. you know what the right says and those nostalgic.. it built character .. duck and cover.. who could forget.. whew

...they would likely be fired. We have seen news stories of just that happening, and of servers being compelled to throw a child's lunch in the garbage, in front of them and everybody, because the child's payments for lunch are in arrears. So, it's "No money...No lunch" in this time too, and lots of kids still go hungry. IOW your anecdote does not support the thesis that the 50s were unremittingly bad compared to today.

nobody got fired for paying for a kid's lunch. Few people have been fired for doing so these days, either. It makes the news when it happens, because it's so shocking. In Minnesota, it led to laws being passed ensuring that kids got lunch. Breakfast, too, in most of our schools in MN.

My point was that there was no program to make sure that kids who were in poverty got anything to eat at all. My mother didn't care for that, so she pitched in. She worked in the cafeteria and as a school secretary. My father was an auto mechanic. They had three children. We were far from well-to-do. My mother's free lunch program for poor children was simply her way of compensating for the inequity of the time. She did what she could with her minimal resources. I'm sure it came out of her grocery and clothing budget. We had tight budgets in those days.

But, I was a child growing up one block from a beautiful beach.

However, things weren't better for most people back then. Health insurance was cheap because there wasn't much health care. And, then there was polio and iron lungs. One cool thing was that every year each auto manufacturer had a distinctly different design and it was exciting to see the new cars each year. We had tiny, tiny closets, but we didn't own many clothes. The best toy was any kind of a ball or a basketball. Bicycles were cool, too. It would not have been unusual for a kid like me to own his own bike, a football and a surfboard. But, that was it. The Sears Christmas issue was a big deal. Rock and Roll records (one song on each side) began on large records - 78rpm. Later, they became smaller - 45 rpm. Most families had a hi-fi record player and about half had a tiny TV. We had two channels.

African Americans had it pretty bad. In the south, there were segregation laws and in much of the north, there was a de facto segregation. Before the development of national TV, each area of the country had distinctly different accents. As a California boy, I could just barely understand the words of friend who moved to California from South Carolina. It was like another language.

There were more bowling alleys then than now. Nearly everyone smoked, including doctors and nurses. A pack of cigarettes was twenty cents. A gallon of gas cost about the same. On the other hand, there was less obesity. We didn't have fast food restaurants - none. A lot of the adults had been greatly changed by WWII. All the men had stories to tell. I think alcohol use was about the same then as now. We didn't get drugs until we were teenagers in the early sixties.

There were good and bad things back then. And, when your young the times seem bette for some reason.

love!

glad it got some exposure so people can see why we reject a revolution.

but the average family is smaller. A new car loaded with all the options had an AM radio and heater. If we were lucky we had a black and white TV and maybe 2 or 3 channels. There was no air conditioning. Not many of the middle class had an RV, motorcycle or a boat. A vacation was maybe a road trip to a local lake or amusement park not a Caribbean cruise. No you can have your 50s.

I only say mini - cause it didn't take long for the establishment to shape shift it to 'alternative'. About the same time crack hit the streets. Coincidence? I'm one of those tweeners, tween hippie and punk, but there was plenty in common between the 2. At least for the socially conscious/Greenpeace types. Skinheads were Trump's wet dream.

My parents were not mainstream at all, so I became an observer. 50's beatniks. No motorhome, no vacations outside of where we could get in the station wagon, and b&w tv for 2 hours a day (news and Star Trek, Man from Uncle, Ed Sullivan, Twilight Zone, then, the color bars or indian head and annoying "wheeeeeee" noise until Mr. Dress-up

but the stripped down (by today's standards) consumer goods you list are not among them.

People were just as pleased with their 1200 square foot house, their new car with heater and radio, their b & w TV and road trip vacation as people are today with 2000 sq. ft. houses, cars with entertainment units and Bluetooth, and Caribbean cruises. You don't miss what you've never had, just as we don't miss today what people will have 60 years from now.

what we consider middle class today would have had the quality of life of someone in the upper 10% in those days.
I started working in a steel mill in 1970 for $2.10 an hour, in this area that was upper middle class. In 1970 the minimum
wage was $1.45, $2.10 was only 44% above minimum wage. The current federal minimum wage is now $7.25 and the same job in the
mill pays over $20 an hour that is 280% over minimum wage. Yes according to bls.gov $1.45 minimum wage would be
equal to $8.94 an hour today with inflation, minimum wage hasn't kept up. Even if you would consider a minimum wage of $8.94 $20 an hour is still 225% over the minimum wage. I think that makes it clear that the middle class of today has a better standard of living than
40 50 or 60 years ago.

And the 1950s were great, not perfect, but great.

Since the 1950s some things have improved, but most things have gone backward.

The period between the end of WWII up until 1990 in America, was possibly the best time in history for the human race.

None of those decades were perfect (crime, Vietnam, poverty, etc.), each had its pluses and minuses, but overall that time period in America may go down in history as having been the best time in history to have been alive.

There was real opportunity then. If you studied, if you worked, you could make a great life for yourself and your family. Imagine! You could get an affordable college degree and actually find a job and start a career.

Looking back at that time from 1945 to 1990, I am reminded of Wordsworth:

"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young were very heaven!"

What's wrong with wanting a world like that for all people of all races?

unless you were black, or gay, or Hispanic, or a woman, or a Muslim.

And now there's no opportunity if you're white, black, gay, Hispanic, woman, or Muslim . . .

Unless you're a super-rich white, black, gay, Hispanic, woman, or Muslim.

Like I said, we've been going backwards to before the 1950s.

the countless people I know that are making a great living as high-tech workers, engineers, financiers, tradesman, lawyers, doctors, nurses, salespeople, etc? They didn't come from rich families. They weren't the 1%. They didn't "get lucky". They worked hard, got an education in a relevant field, and leveraged that to a good income and good life.

Saying that something doesn't exist when it is all around us every day is like saying the sky isn't blue on a cloudless June day at noon.

Those careers did not and do not work hard? Your entire premise requires that access to education and opportunity is equal regardless of gender, race, economic status, and geographic location. A poor african american growing up in an urban environment that has a high crime rate and underperforming schools will NOT have the same opportunity as a peer in an affluent neighborhood. This does not even take into account the realities of privilege.

Even if we look at two people of the same race, someone growing up in a poor mining town in west virginia has less access to quality educational services than someone growing up in Manhattan.

You can always find a four leaf clover in an attempt to bolstet your argument but it will still be rare among the those with three leaves.

But the person I was replying to said there was no opportunity for anyone unless you are super rich. That just isn't true. I didn't grow up rich and neither did all the other people I grew up with. Some did well, some did not. My observation is that those who did well are the ones who worked harder and who had more natural talent (intelligence).

Education should be available to everyone who wants it and we should support and encourage people to get educated. We've made great strides on that front - we have people in this thread saying they remember the 50's and talking about how women couldn't open bank accounts without their husband's permission - so we've come a long way.

But to say there is no opportunity unless you're super rich is a blatant lie. It's defeatist. It's a horrible basis for one's political beliefs and a dangerous basis for who one chooses to vote for. Worst of all, legislating on the basis of emotions and beliefs rather than facts and data produces bad results (i.e. pro-life legislation, abstinence education, increases in gov't backed loans for students, etc).

And the vast differences in opportunity, quality of education, quality of life, quality of healthcare and the realities of privelege.

I see this work hard argument all the time and it continues to astound me that so many fail to recognize reality...

well all my friends succeeded.... I didnt grow up wealthy... I worked hard. I didn't have it easy.... inevitably "super rich" will be brought up as a means at misdirection. It comes from a place of privilege and ignorance. I am not calling you ignorant as an insult. You are ignorant of the vast differences in experiences of Americans and how those differences present roadblocks to recieving all of those things I highlighted in my first sentence. All Americans are supposed to be equal but that doesn't mean that they are treated equal even have the opportunity to experience equality. One can work hard but not be granted the opportunity to enjoy those aspects of life you enjoy.

Most things have gone backwards?

Education has improved.

Technology has improved.

Medicine has improved.

Quality of life has improved.

Working conditions have improved.



There is real opportunity today. More than there was back then. More millionaires are made every year now than ever were back then. The internet and free trade has opened up opportunities we could never have dreamed of. College is more accessible than it was back then, and if you are smart and hard working, the world is your oyster.

Oh, and asians, latinos, blacks, women, gays and the other groups have equality that didn't exist in the 50's.


People remember the 50's the same way as I remember childhood. Long summer days, out playing with my friends until it was dinner time, not a care in the world and no stress whatsoever in life. But we always look on the past fondly and forget the bad stuff.

And there was a shitload of bad stuff in the 50's that is best left behind.

Education has improved? You can spend the rest of your life paying off your huge student loans because there are no jobs for you after you graduate.

Technology has improved? Sure, that's why there are so few jobs and will be even fewer jobs with every passing year.

Medicine has improved? How nice of modern science to invent hugely profitable interventions to give usually temporarily, partial, and often questionable relief from ailments that an unhealthy lifestyle and diet that modern science has inflicted on us, and of which many ailments can be cure by simply returning to a less industrial lifestyle (as do industrialized Australian Native Peoples, when they abandon civilization to go live in the bush to get themselves healthy again).

Quality of life has improved? All but the rich are extremely insecure in the necessities of life, and which necessities have become outrageously expensive--houses, education, healthcare (the current drop in oil prices is a temporary anomaly), the cost of raising children, and good healthy food (have you seen the price of grass fed and grass finished beef?)--all the most important things in life are being taken from us.

And those of us who still manage to have them should be looking over their shoulders every day for the technology that will eliminate their careers forever, either by technology doing their jobs outright . . .

Or by technology enabling the offshoring of their jobs: Huge amounts of information can be moved around the world at light-speed for near absolute zero cost, so why should knowledge work be done in America anymore, when it's cheaper elsewhere in the world?

Or by simply obviating the need for your career altogether: Who will need traffic cops when your car is in the IoT and the cloud will detect every traffic infraction and instantly deduct your fine from your credit or debit card, and who will need traffic court judges and traffic court lawyers too?

I don't call cheap flatscreen TVs and electronic gizmos as quality of life enhancing (rather they destroy our quality of life by destroying the environment in their manufacture and disposal and by over-complicating our lives).

In the early 50's I remember seeing the occupation troops on the streets of my home town.

after sundown.
If they drove through the town on the state highway, they were ticketed.
They could not buy gas in any gas station or groceries in any store.
Those laws were repealed with the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

...A-bomb drills. I also remember thinking there was no way in hell ducking and covering under my desk was going to do a damn thing to protect me if an atomic bomb went off anywhere nearby.

no worries, no problems, all (well, most) of my needs catered to. Of course, I was only 8 when the fifties ended, so my view might be slanted...

In most states, married women could not open bank accounts without their husband's consent. They could not sigh contracts on their own. Single women had it a little better, but they could get fired for getting married. Employers were free to discriminate based on sex. And that's just one group.

OTOH, progress was starting to be made, however slowly. The GI Bill was creating a larger middle class by making college education available to people who wouldn't have had it otherwise, the armed forces were being integrated, people were starting to recognize the inequalities in the country and doing something about them.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, like most other eras.

Why must we ignore the part of the past that teaches us good lessons and only pay attention to the part of the past that teaches us bad lessons?

It's because most people think a thing must be either this or that. It doesn't occur to them that a thing can be both, by employing what's called Janusian thinking.

To categorize a thing as always this or that, is to go through life with blinders on.

It is also a sign of laziness because it's easy, it saves the trouble of thinking about a thing further when you can simply categorize a thing as wholly bad as soon as one bad thing about it is discovered.

Fresh fruit or vegetables were much less common; people really did eat canned vegetables. The smoking was everywhere; maybe it helped kill the taste of canned green beans.

Jello was HOT.

...I was a kid, because we only ever had the canned variety. Canned peas are particularly vile, IMO, as are creamed vegetables. Blecchhhh!

Having been born in January 1960.
There were these though: The Girls Who Went Away, young women who suddenly went to live with their "aunt" in another state, and came back seven or eight months later, depressed and years older. For the lucky ones, Auntie's was a Salvation Army maternity home, other institutions may have been less forgiving.
Nope, no nostalgia here.

who "visited their aunt" for a while. However, there was one doctor in town who would perform abortions on the quiet. It wasn't a secret, really, but nothing was ever really said about it. A couple of girls I knew went to him for that. Since teenagers had zero access to any form of contraception, pregnancies weren't uncommon, really.

An adult over 21 could buy condoms, but in early 60s California, you could only get them from a pharmacist, and they had "For Prevention of Disease Only" printed on their packaging. Teens either had to have an adult friend get them for them, or try to do without. That trick often failed.

I graduated from high school in 1963 and went off to college that fall. What a surprise to visit the student health center and see a big goldfish bowl full of condoms in the waiting area. Soon after that, the birth control pill became available and the health center was always ready to prescribe them.

So much repression.

Account status: Flagged for review
Member since: Sun Jan 31, 2016, 11:40 PM
Number of posts: 2,028
Number of posts, last 90 days: 1957

Can a constructed character experience nostalgia at all? I suppose if androids dream of electric sheep perhaps they can.

That person was uncommonly unpleasant.

With #1957 being a bit of nostalgia bout 1957. LOL

The other thread was vile, dog whistle revisionist nonsense.

50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's.... every era, MM, not just the 50's.

But that's personal. I also can remember how those decades were for others. I try very hard to balance my own personal experiences with my observations of a broader perspective.

I'm a white, straight male with a college education. I'm a person of privilege. That does not make my personal experiences universal for everyone. Far from it. Have I had a pleasant life? Yes, pretty much. Have I seen many others who did not? Absolutely. I try to remember that always.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120789/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_38

That movie scared and depressed me with the mobs of people who started off clueless and transformed into mindless violent crowds who destroyed anything that changed their world.

The movie killed whatever nostalgia I had for the Fifties.

In the fifties, we not only had no lunch served at school, we had very little time given to us to eat whatever our working parents had managed to pack for us. The teachers had to take turns supervising us in a classroom. One teacher used to kick us out onto the playground after 5 minutes of fulminating at us about how we were ruining her lunch period. Most gave us 15 minutes to choke something down. Then out we went, into all weathers.

I was there. and anyone who thinks they want to go back there is a fool. for all the obvious reasons already stated and for one that has not been. the entire economic engine of Europe and Asia had been decimated. there were millions of homeless refugees. there was no infrastructure standing. and America in her victory instituted the Marshall Plan. America rebuilt Europe. America rebuilt Japan.
Our tax dollars literally forged our competition!

Does anyone think that America - untouched by the ravages of war - would stay on top forever?
That's just ignorance. Those smart Europeans used to immigrate to the USA because there was
no opportunity at home. Of course they would remain in their home countries and take the opportunity to not only rebuild their own country but re-start their economic engines.

And they certainly did. And instead of raising our game to meet the new competition - we got lazy and greedy. We stopped paying attention and the oligarchs took over. We allowed troglodytes to use their "southern strategy" to gin up hate and fear. We allowed big money to take over and silence real journalists. As the "greatest generation" of newsmen died off they were replaced by inexperienced pretty boys (and girls) who read a script edited by corporate suits more indebted to profit than the country.

And for the record those folks not in the white middle class - other white people - weren't doing so well. My mother worked in a factory - my father held down 3 jobs. We lived in a tiny house, on a dirt road. My grandparents lived in a tiny house on a dirt road, without hot water for years. Those post war 40's and 50's that are so fondly remembered are childhood memories. my own daughter stated that she wanted to raise her kids in the 70's! really? yes that was her childhood. free and safe in a rural area where she could ride her bike. well she found it in a backwater hick town. Her kids are "safe" - but she is surrounded by zealot religious freaks and racists and guns - lots and lots of guns. She is re-thinking her strategy.

So when you hear someone waxing nostalgic about the 50's remind them they hid behind wooden desks during nuclear war drills. They wore military style dog tags for easier body identification. and preachers railed against the evils of the modern world in vague terms. Violence was seldom witnessed - the closest were "film noir" black and white movies with slimy crooks with lots of gun shots that never produced any blood. And our information of the outside world was limited to headlines at 6pm on a 30 minute newscast, that children seldom watched. If parents were worried they did not share it with their children.

and here we are today - citizens who remember the simpler time of childhood! That never existed!!

of the time that anyone on our side would be nostalgic about.

Back then a working class wage would support a family.

THIS is an example of people using identity politics to marginalize the left.

Well done.

There's a reason suburban white Republicans look so fondly on this post-war decade of rebuilding as an idea time. They had ALL the privilege.

It shocks me to the core (though it shouldn't based on the demographics of the 'typical' Bernie enthusiast) that there are those here to long for the days of white male supremacy.

The Fifties Sound

They say the fifties are comin again!
Get out my bobby socks and run to the gym!
The fifties band has got them out on the floor -

Hey wait! I been through this nightmare before!
Those olden days were not so golden you know
Girls who got in trouble, they had nowhere to go
Couldn't take their lives into their own hands
Spent their time a swoonin over rock n roll bands

In those days colored people knew their place
Didn't try to barge into the human race
But Elvis and the others picked up all their cues
And made a million dollars singing white boy blues

Whoa Whoa - whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa
They're dancing to what oppressed us 20 years ago.
Girls wore thick makeup, boys wore thick grease
If you didn't have a steady, you were never at ease
Swearin and sex, they were mortal sins -
Why the hell you think we brought the sixties in?

Everybody looked and thought and talked the same
And learned all of the details of the dating game
Boys, they were lettermen or else they were queer
If they were small or shy they lived in constant fear

Think of all the folks who miss the fifties sound
The millionaires whose profits have been going down
For the ku klux klan, those were the good ole' days
And back then, women really knew their place
Administrators missed the days when students obeyed
Didn't meddle in the world the grownups had made
The Pentagon's nostalgic for the days of yore
When every kid would rush to join their latest war!

So all you kids soakin up the scene
Sorry to break in on your American dream
But we lived through it and it ain't no fun:
No one's gonna take back what we won!
Teen angel, teen angel, rest in pieces!

kristin lems
- See more at: http://www.kristinlems.com/oh_mama___plus/#sthash.GSeHMVVi.dpuf

What the hell do people think the 60s were all about? This idea that the 50s was a socialist paradise is nonsense; back then they put socialists in jail and capitalists were directly running the government. Eisenhower's advisors were all corporate CEOs!

.


People who fantasize about going back have mental issues, a fucked up recollection, or hold a bogus nostalgia.


.

1. Extremely progressive tax rates.

2. Things were built to last in America by Americans instead of being built to fail in China.

3. In song, women were dolls or gals instead of bitches and hoes. Perhaps dolls or gals were not ideal but surely they beat the terms that have come since.

4. When in public, people dressed up and strove to have some class and style. People had shame. Today people are slobs and have no shame whatsoever. I'm ashamed of having to write b & h in the above line! YUCK!!!

5. Rock-n-roll in the 1950s was a black and white art form. Just a few years later black music was soul and white music was rock.

6. Mid-century modern/ atomic age furniture and decor, tail fin cars. People around the world covet this stuff and they still make reproductions to this day.

7. TV and movies had morals and glorified doing good while punishing being bad. I literally will not watch tv or movies of today because they often glorify deception, underhandedness or 'dissing' others. The only lessons learned are if it feels good do it and if you don't get caught it didn't happen.

8. Mom and Pop stores instead of evil corporate entities.

Of course I applaud the social progress made since the 1950s but why can't we have the good things that were around back then too? Imagine the 1950s with today's civil rights and technology! That's what we need to strive for IMO.

And every single fucking person posting on these disingenuous fucking threads fucking well knows it.

This is just theatrical meaningless bullshit.

People should be ashamed to be this mendacious

But like candidate, like supporter!

and Ike. But we should reject everything from the 1950s because there was sexism and racism. Of course that stuff is all gone today, right!?!

The 1950s with today's civil rights and technology is what we on the Left should all be striving for.

Meanwhile our party moves more and more toward the right.

And tv represents an America we have lost where it was all great and everyone lived a great life until govt messed it up...the 1950s started a transition...and it took a toll...but we are so much better off.for it
But 1950s America sucked...for most

were assumed to be only wanting to get a Mrs. degree. That a woman might want some sort of career was a completely alien thought.

A corollary to this was that in a family with both girls and boys, money might be found for the sons to go to college, but not the daughters. Even if the daughters were noticeably smarter and more interested in going.

Not one female student in the entire department. Not one. 1963.