The America we knew is gone

The Patriot Act took away more of our basic rights than the Constitution granted us.

I never needed to show a picture ID when voting. Until now.

I’m on the no fly list. But I wasn’t told why and I wasn’t allowed on the plane.

Any president can start any war just because. And screw congressional approval.

A totally insane, bugshit crazy, lunatic right-wing fringe is being taken seriously.

Our government is no longer answerable to us.

Can’t afford gas, food, and the basic necessities of life? Tough shit.

Education? School the little brats at home and quit whining.

Jobs? Hey, that’s not the government’s problem. Start a small business or starve.

Sympathy or empathy from the powers that be? You must be kidding.

This is not the America I grew up in. It has become a really hideous, ugly country and there’s virtually nothing we can do about it. No, we’re not “NUMBER ONE.” And shouting “USA,” “USA,” is an exercise in utter stupidity.

But all of this is just my opinion. What’s yours?

because it's gone and never coming back.

Yes, I think it's over.

"You had your chance....the Bums lost, Mister Lebowski!"

Now we are not bums, but that's not how the rich and corporate interests see us

They see us all as bums, with our hands out, asking for things like our paycheck, our money, our homes. For them, all of that is theirs, and we are just taking up space.

:smoke:





http://ulyssespress.com/?books=the-abide-guide

F*ck it, Dude. Let's go bowling.

But if true, it wouldn't be the first time a boomer made a sad, sick mistake

Neil Young was for Reagan - for about 1 year!

Soon after he repented, and apologized for such disgrace

and they want us out. NOW!!!

They'll give us our little indulgences

They'll send a cop over if we get robbed

They'll act like they care about us when they lower our pay by 25%

But in the end, I wouldn't put it past them to make citizenship like software licenses

Sure, you get to qualify for Citizenship_2011©!

But come 2012, you have to prove it again, so pay up! It's Citizen_2012©: Ultimate Package! And the fee is up 75%

I just keep hoping that all of the "bums" are going to realize that if we all learn to stick together, there are more of us than there are the rich and corporate interests. That's our only hope, me thinks...and that's a slim one at this stage of the game.

So many people that I know walk into the voting booth and totally, totally vote against their own self-interests. Until those types learn to think for themselves, I don't have a lot of faith in any improvement in my country.

The big boys have that down to a science. They create Tea Parties to divide us. They screw around with gay rights and right to choose to divide us. A lot of us can't see passed these issues to see the big picture which would unite ALL of us: we are getting screwed thoroughly and there won't be anything left.

He went on several tangential rants about 'hippies' and how they 'didn't ask to be born, so thought they should have everything for free - free food, free houses, free education, everything free. How dumb is that? That stuff isn't free! It costs money!' That, literally, is how uncritical my own father's perception of the media's image of hippies was. This persists to this day. People accuse me of wanting 'free health care' even though I take the time to explicitly explain the costs would be integrated throughout several tax structures.

What i am trying to say is that, as much as the hippies loved Marshall McLuhan and his disciples, there was a powerlessness or a disinterest in controlling their media image (probably powerlessness, but perhaps a dislike for media in general??) and, since perception is reality, the media won in creating a capitalist, religious, easily scammed population. I use my father as anecdotal evidence. And the Dude.

Freedom is still cherished and practiced her.

The OP is a series of strawman arguments... making up what 'others' think.

I'll give you that it's a beautiful country in places, but we're trashing and paving over those everyday.

American Exceptionalism is a bullshit lie that we've been fed for a hundred years. There never was a Manifest Destiny, American Dream, nor any other packaged sloganeering that made us any better than tons of other countries. We're mediocre and only average in our mediocrity. We imprison and execute a disproportionate amount of minorities and poor, justice is purchased by the rich, and the only thing that matters is the bottom line

at least not in the colonial period... I mean it started, the first glimmers under Jackson.

:-)

Ok... that is almost two hundred, stand corrected.

We went to the national museum of history in Mexico City... I did not need a guide... I mean masters in history of Mexico, I think I could self guide... (And seeing the ORIGINAL of a book everybody and their sister who has done history of the borbon reforms has read, was kind of cool)

But here was one part of the exhibit that warmed my heart. It was a large write up of the CIVIL WAR, bloody civil war... during the war of independence. You try to go there outside of very specialized circles with US History. Yep there is plenty of myth in any national history but when even simple facts such as wars of independence are also civil wars are denied, we enter into the realm of pure and sheer fantasy making.

AMERICA F'CK YEAH......Freedom isn't free...it costs everything the OP said it does...your liberties for security...F'CK YEAH!

USA was a great country...as was Canada....but batshit crazy is the new norm....so "great" is not the word I would use to describe the United States any longer.
but each to their own opinion...

It costs the blood of patriots, AND TAX MONEY.

unfortunately, those who are in the service are sent to illegal wars, and pay the ultimate price for a lie.

Yes and tax money that is paid by those that serve...not those that want to be "served"(top 2%).

:rofl:


:eyes:

and not encouraging direction, imo.

women...

Free countries do that....

Read on inverted totalitarianism.

Here, always helpful

http://www.alternet.org/news/85728/

The book referred to in the article, must read

http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted-Totalitarianism/dp/0691135665

By the way George Orwell is the guy over there doing hoops and hollers.

DAMN I WAS RIGHT!

WITH NO FACTS.

certainly must be a very young man, who has not experienced much of life here in the United States...

The op's points are well founded and experienced by many

The US Empire is over - not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Oh and read the Bill of Rights, too.

one of the greatest documents ever written by an American.

Whether or not such still obtains, I've honestly not a clue.

I think my definition would be different from yours.

I'll try putting MY head in the sand too!

:smoke:

no smoke involved.

how's the view in that hole you have your head in?

No more freedom here.
Bush saw that all freedoms are taken away.

Sorry folks, I just HAD to feed this troll!

When I was a kid the average worker could own a car and buy a decent house in a decent neighborhood and raise a family *without* having to work multiple jobs and without his wife being *required* to work just to make ends meet.

In those days an average worker had every expectation that their children would have a better life than they had.

While there are still a few remnants of that America most of it has either been outsourced or sold to the highest bidder.

Excuse my French but what America has become today is a country of whores. We have the best politicians that money can buy, we have CEO's worth 100's of millions of dollars willing to sell out the jobs of their fellow countrymen and women for a bonus of just a few million more. We have doctor's making millions a year giving liposuction to the rich while 50% of the people in this country have no medical insurance.

Freedom may still be cherished by its citizens but it isn't practiced by

those governing us --

And there is no democracy without economic democracy -- and we certainly don't

have that, either!


Working as wage slaves isn't freedom --

nor is a future working for slave wages --


Obama/Duncan are working for an America without public education --

attacking teachers and their unions.

Obama/Big Pharma and Private H/C industry are working for an America where little or

no health care is provided at exhorbitant prices.

Obama/MIC/oil industry are working to keep oil in play despite the reality that we

can no longer burn fossil fuels -- at costs of losing our ability to survive on this

planet! MIC uses 80% of our oil which makes oil a "national security issue" --

no oil::no war --

Obama is pushing more oil drilling -- "Drill now, think later!" -- and more nonsense

of "clean coal" --


And on and on -- on and on -- you know the song!

"Freedom is still cherished and practiced here" How so?

Wiretapping, TSA, Patriot Act, protest cages... where is this freedom you are talking about that is so cherished?

I have been visiting the US since 1973 and I love the country.

I love the people. I love the energy.I love the countryside-like no other on earth. I absolutely love the diversity. America has the very worst, but it also has the very best... especially when it comes to people.

When I first visited I truly thought anything was possible ..and it was.

For someone who visits every 5 years since '73 I have seen the change -incrementally.

The greatest land on earth for freedom has been dismantling that freedom step by step.

I despair because I know that the majority of people do not want this-but also the majority no longer have a free media and they just don't realise that.

But it's more than that. There is a war being waged against the ordinary Joe Average by a fascist corporate US.

and they seem to be winning. I don't know the answer.

Hope you are proud.....

You sir have hit the nail on the head.

It's all a charade now. Just in time for the Independence Day gala celebrations. Someone should have organized protests for Monday.

Our government is no longer answerable to us.

I don't remember it ever being answerable to us. I'm 53 years old FWIW.

and the tipping point will be interesting... i suspect it is near relatively speaking.

Been reading Gary Nash's excellent book on the movements that proceeded independence, (And then there is the civil war) Neither came from zeus's head fully formed.

In fact, the tea party, as astroturf and financed by the kock brothers as it is, may be a classic case of blowback... yes these people are sick from our POV... but they are talking self empowerment. Yes there are parallels

Can I tell you when this will happen? Nope... but it will. We are moving towards a line that is not easy to deal for ANY government.

What's the title of the one you are referring to?
Sounds interesting.

:hi:

we are on our own so we better look out for one another.

country is fragmenting IMO. I hate to sound pessimistic, but none of this will be fixed easily, and might take decades. IMO the tipping point has almost been reached and I have no idea which was it's going to tip, but I think the OP was right on target. I was once an eternal optimist, but no more.

politicians are no longer for WE THE PEOPLE - they work for the corporations, and those corporations want cheap labor and that is what they are getting. They don't give a flying fuck about destroying America - it is all short term gain. I told someone last night, all the raises I would have received the past few years went to corporate executives. Yup.

incentive to fix the country. Dirt cheap labor is what they want and it's the plan. Any thinking this is all by chance aren't reading the handwriting on the wall.

Some definitely want to fix it, but the forces against it are far too great, and our gov. has lost control. It's now owned by those that want to bring America completely down for profit and greed. Our gov. has merged with large corporate interests, no matter which party. And any thinking these guys think like we do really don't get what's going on, they really don't.

tipping points are never nice.

Teh country is gone... something else will replace it... fall of empire is coming... and I suspect the break up of the United States. I hope I end up in a more progressive successor state...

Nor will the break up be... peaceful

them in time to move onto the next one. Call it a sixth sense, street smarts or whatever, but I had the same feelings in those companies as I do now in our country.

We are working with sooooooooo many variables in the US now, and the BS, rhetoric and outright craziness is so pervasive I have a hard time feeling it's going to end well.

And what I find amazing is the contrived gridlock, all of the fighting, the lies, the distortions, misinformation, greed, bullies, belligerent behavior, divisiveness on and on ...

I was telling someone today, in ten years or much less one won't even recognize this country and I fear it's not going to be for the better. There are way too many people disadvantaged now in this country not through any fault of their own. I think there is a resentment and hostility really growing.

I'm just guessing, but I bet in some dark corners of gov., about 100 million or so of this country have been written off as not savable, those in poverty, homeless, lacking insurance and sick, many children, the old and elderly, the uneducated, chronically unemployed, under employed, etc.

"I think there is a resentment and hostility really growing."

That is why the tipping point is coming and won't be pretty. It may take five years, it may take a generation... look at Egypt... it took almost three generations. But tipping points are always reached. That is the "law of history" that Hegel or Marx never found.

It was a direct consequence of the US being the only major power whose infrastructure was untouched by the devastation of war. The whole rest of the world needed to be rebuilt and we were the manufacturer of most of it.. that was our heyday....and once the rest of the world was on their feet, we were no longer as "necessary", and we began our descent..

Anyone waiting for a return to "middle class", may be waiting forever

Posted by SoCalDem in General Discussion
Fri Jun 10th 2011, 12:11 PM

Middle Class status was a blip...an aberration, a cultural iconic status that was well-hyped, and actually achieved by very few.

A look at American life in the rear view mirror is helpful in understanding it.

Prior to our entry into WWII, MOST people lived in a rich-poor USA. People in big cities lived crammed into small apartments (often over Mom& Pop) businesses that barely covered expenses, or in run-down tenement buildings.

Rural/small-town people lived a hand-to-mouth existence, and worked dawn to dusk...usually in very small ramshackle places.

The country was mired in depression/post depression angst, with men roaming the country looking for work, and families loading up what little they had into anything they could move, just to try their luck somewhere else. Jobs were scarce, and when found, paid little. The only "un-rich" who had credit were the ones who "owed their soul to the company-store".


WWII swooped up most of the men and sent them abroad, which immediately created millions of "job openings".

It's no surprise that an eager female workforce snapped up those jobs, and gave us pretty much "full employment".

Post-WWII (only a 6 yr span from start to finish), brought back the men (and displaced most of the women) and with those men, an eagerness to make up for lost time. It's also important to remember that most of the rest of the world's production capacity was thrashed, so we were poised to shoot right to the top of the heap, and we did.

The timeline from 1950 (when most of the ones in the GI Bill had finished college) to the mid-60's, created millions of new families who truly needed everything. The generation born after the war would be living AWAY from the "family homes". Until after the war , it was not unusual for families to be in multi-generational living arrangements.

A look at old census records showed me that at one time in the late 20's, my grandparents lived at an address that also housed 2 brothers, their wives and children and 3 elderly parents. As a kid I rode bikes & roller-skated past that old house many times, never even knowing the history of that place, or that once upon a time, my ancestors jammed so many people into that 4 bedroom house.

Post WWII vets had earned the right to have their own place, and took advantage of the opportunity.

Movies, magazines & later TV, showed us all what "middle class" was supposed to be, and Madison Avenue was happy to oblige.

As the only exporter of "stuff", and a country with tremendous pent-up demand for all the goods & services that people had been denied by first the Depression and later the war, it's no surprise that we boomed.

Even in the midst of "middle class", it never really was what we had all been sold, because the seeds of destruction had already been planted. There were many children, who would soon be fighting each other for jobs that would start disappearing as they aged.

People who had never dreamed that they would own a home, were able to buy that house & have a car and take a vacation now and then, and even save some money, but behind the scenes, business was already trying to find ways to eliminate expenses, and with them , jobs.

As a child of the 50's, it was rare to find ANYTHING in stores that was not "made in the USA". Occasionally we would run across something that said "Made in occupied Japan", and a little later, just "Made in Japan", but that stuff did not sell well to people who had recently been at war with Japan.

Business is all about profit, and every penny saved on wages & benefits, is a penny in the pockets of the ones in charge.

The children of WWII vets & their wives never experienced the Depression, and had only ever known plenty, so it should come as no surprise, that this generation would not be as frugal as their parents' & grandparents' generations had been...especially after a young-lifetime of being indulged by parents who felt lucky to have survived the war and who had so much more than many of them had ever expected to have.

This era also ushered in (in a big way) cheap throw-away stuff. It was suddenly possible (even preferred) to buy single use "stuff". Where people used to hang onto things and repair them over and over, and then dismantle them for parts for the "next one", now those items were just tossed out and a new one bought to replace it. Repair shops faded away...and with them, a family income went as well.

For 169 years (1776-1945), America was rich v poor, with very little in the middle, and in a 6 year period, we "created" Middle Class". By the time the 1970's rolled around, "Middle Class" was getting a little ragged around the edges, and starting to be less achievable by more and more people.

Credit cards replaced wage-increases necessary to maintain the standard of living that most people now felt entitled to, and as the rest of the world needed less of what we "made", it was no surprise that jobs and the benefits that came with those jobs, would start to decline in number. The technology boom also made whole swaths of "the economy" outdated and non-existent. The problem though, is that there were people....real people...still attached to those segments of vanished job markets. Those people had/have families, and expenses.

The union movement (earned at great cost decades earlier) was becoming "unnecessary" because there were just so many Boomers to fill a shrinking number of jobs, and mechanization was marching along to eliminate more jobs.

Decades of bad legislation and sweetheart deals made in back rooms, have sold us all out, and the need to rely on credit for so many, have undone millions of families.

Recession after recession , with an aggravating regularity, coupled with recurring bouts of massive fraud and the following taxpayer bail-outs , has dealt the Middle Class a pretty shitty hand, and there are no more Aces in the deck.

We may be soon returning to the way of life we had for most of our nation's "life"....a hand-to-mouth, unsure way of living...We had a blip of about 30 years of what most would call "Middle Class" (mostly for the people born in the early-1930's) , and now it's ending, and we're headed back to what we always were..rich v poor, with most of us scrambling for the scraps. We may have better quality scraps these days, but they are still scraps..

passing this along.

Thanks for reading it :)

Insofar as some may read this as suggesting that things were generally positive from an economic standpoint from the end of the war to the 1980s because of the post WWII demand, it ignores the fact that economic cycles of up and down continued through this period, with eight different periods of recession (decline in GDP) occurring between 1949 and the early 1980s, ranging in duration from 6 months to 16 months. Unemployment during some of those periods reached as high as 10.8 percent (although generally it peaked at 6 plus to 7 plus percent).

The current downturn has been more severe and longer lasting than most, but that doesn't mean its permanent.

there were just too damned many of us to ever enjoy what our parents had....for very long..

parents of boomers were children during the depression, and after the war, they were the young adults just starting their "grown-up" lives..they entered at just the right moment in time..and for the rest of us, there has not been that one "sweet-spot"..

In about 20 years the US will be once again at a point of stasis (once most boomers are gone), but never fear, there will always be some reason why the rich keep getting richer & the poor get poorer.. Greedy bastards never go out of style:(

I hit the workforce in the late 70's and had a few years of (in hindsight...prosperity )going into the 80's - but after that, wages have been flat ever since....and if you have been watching the Ed Show lately, (last week was it?) he has a graphic which shows flat wages wsince that time with productivity rising.

Great post BTW SoCalDem...about the blip!

One thing I did experience were the oil shortages in the 70's. Do you remember that? "Save Water, Shower With A Friend!" etc...

This from an old Mad Magazine dated July, 1974




I'd be willing to bet that many folks posting here on DU read MAD growing up!!!! :-)

"Cracked" sucked.

but Mad was my favorite

but Mad was always funnier, to me. The had the better centerfolds (remember those?) too.

patrolling around checking on lawn-watering/car-washing.

they jotted down your house number & if it was not "your" day, you got a ticket in the mail..

left to lose".

After decades of attacks on it by corporations using Mafia and any other

means of aggression they can use -- infiltration of unions -- delays, lies,

firings -- threats -- still going on --

on and on -- on and on

You know the song!

I'm sad to say.

slightest concern for the welfare of the masses. The government exists to enrich the corporations and those at the very top of the income ladder. The little guy is barely hanging on or has already slipped through the cracks. The corporate media exists not to inform but to distract. Millions go without health care. Government goons routinely intimidate travelers at airports. College is increasingly unaffordable, but it hardly matters since jobs are scarce and all too frequently outsourced anyway. In many places mass transit is antiquated or non-existent. Billions are wasted on needless wars. People vote against their own self-interest to perpetuate all of the above.

IMO, America sucks and I only see the downward spiral continuing.

:party:

Although America is trending downward. The good news is we have the ability to recover. I have faith that we can and will.

from coming to fruition -- still doing it!

And, yes, many in America were still suffering serious poverty --

especially African Americans in the South --

They had succeeded in NOT covering domestic work with Social Security --

and that was the main employment for the AA family -- women as domestics.

Many other problems and reasons I'm not familiar with, I'm sure.


Segregated schools until the 1960's -- segregated services from meals to

bus terminals and buses.


Martin Luther King, Jr. and then Bobby Kennedy spoke for them -- began to

show us the reality of poverty in America.

Who speaks for them now -- ?

But that doesn't mean we can't still rebuild it with something better. Think of Japan after the second World War. Destroyed, humiliated, and lying in rubble. And yet several decades later they were an economic power. We can do the same thing.

It's only truly over when you give up.

I still hold out hope for this country; admittedly, it's hard to keep hoping with the dark powers arrayed against us.

All I know is that when you've got a country where the majority of it's young people think torture is okay, when corporations can get away with anything they want while poor people go to jail for decades for drug crimes, where we can spend trillions on war to "protect" us from terrorism but can't do anything about global warming, then yeah, it's over.

All that's left now is to tear down and start anew.

along with a lot of other things that used to be worse (if you were African American, if you were a woman, if you were a Jew, if you were Irish, if you were gay, at various times, if you were thought to be "unAmerican"). I'm not saying the problems we have aren't serious, just that the country has always had serious problems of one sort or another.

all the 80's, the 90's, and the 2000's. And this is the worst I've ever seen it. The middle calss is in shambles. It' wasn't like that a few decades ago. For all the problems this country has had, it has had a strong middle class for decades now. But that's changed. And that's what's really different. And I don'/t see the middle class coming back without a massive uprising against our corporate overlords.

A country's "greatness" isn't just measured in economic terms. Yes, the recession and the excruciatingly slow recovery has been bad for the middle class. But honestly, looking past economics, do you think its better or worse for gays, African Americans, and groups apart from white middle class males today than it was at other times? The history of progress in this country has been two steps forward and one step backwards for a long time. Economic ups and downs impact the march, but ultimately its been more forwards than backwards.

in terms of civil rights. Is it perfect? No, far from it. And yet, all the civil rights in the world don't mean jack shit if you can't eat, afford health care, or put a roof over your head.

Is a country's greatness measured only in economic terms? No. But without am economy that can support its people, then all the other things really don't mean much.

Exactly what I was trying to drive at in my posts downthread.

anti-gay hatred has INCREASED since when I was younger (but then again, I now live in the south). I can't really quantify it, only offer a little anecdotal evidence. In the 70's, EVERY body knew Paul Lynde, Liberace, and Rip Taylor were gay. Would jokes be said about them by bigots? Of course, that is what bigots do. If either of these people were around today, I am positive (just listening to the fuck heads I have to live around) that they would be despised and vilified at every opportunity. I think the hate level has increased, and you only have to look a cases like Matthew Shepard to see that. People in economic trouble love their scapegoats. In Germany, it was the Jews. I am not putting us at the level of late '30's Germany, but we aren't that far off.

1 in 3 black men are now part of the prison system. Poverty rates are higher among blacks than in the mid 70s, infant mortality rates are higher, high school dropout rates are higher, drug addiction rates are higher, single parenthood is higher, incomes are lower than in the mid 70s, unemployment is higher than in the mid 70s.

And let's not forget that we HAVE made progress on all sorts of fronts in the past half a century or so.

November 22, 1963 in a coup d'etat in Dallas. The MIC/PTB let LBJ have the Great Society in return for his giving them the war they wanted in Vietnam. The rest, as they say, is history.

and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Some of us worked hard to try to end that America. You really don't miss it do you?

of when representative government in this country came to an end and when the MIC/Powers that Be assumed what amouted to complete control over the agenda. They knew that a Civil/Voting Rights Act was inevitable and let LBJ have it; that legislation didn't affect the MIC/PTB's power in any way and there was no money in maintaining Jim Crow. In return they got the war in Vietnam, which they desparately wanted.

And TPTB these days are an even more venal and crazy bunch than they were in those days given the rise of the financial class to a position of such prominence.

was not "inevitable" and that it took the work and sacrifice of a lot of people -- and a lot of compromise -- to get it enacted.

It certainly helped to have a President who was behind it 100% even though it was not politically expedient. And what LBJ wanted he usually got. He stood foursquare behind the Civil/Voring Rights acts even though he famously said that his support of them would cost the Democrats the south for at least a generation. The achievements of Dr King and everyone else who put themselves on the line for equality were heroic in the true sense of the word. I am not belittling them in any way. I am talking about a different issue.

I was referring to the takeover of the levers of power, particularly economic power, by the "shadow elite" and the MIC. JFK took on both power centers in his short presidency and paid the price.

it all changed starting then!

What decade or decades defined the era that you think was the best for America. Whatever decade you pick, I'm fairly certain it will be possible to point out numerous things that were worse for some group or another if not for all Americans.

But I am curious what era you would like to see us return to.

I want to move forward in a completely new one.

Go read about the Alien and Sedition Acts. Or the Sedition Act of 1918. Or the internment of Japanese-Americans. Or segregation. Child labour. The conditions of factory workers and miners in the Gilded Age in the days before unions. Poll taxes and literacy tests and property requirements for voting. The Know-Nothings and anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant sentiment in the mid-19th century. The imposition of immigration quotas because too many of "them" ("them" being "people other than white Protestant Northern Europeans) were coming to America. The Chinese Exclusion Act. The jingoism and imperialism of the Spanish-American War and the US involvement in the Philippines. Not to mention the very long history of American military involvement in many places around the world to further US interests. From Cuba to Haiti to the Dominican Republic to Pershing's Punitive Expedition to Mexico to support and weapons for Nicaraguan contras and Afghan mudjaheddin and Saddam Hussein when he was fighting the Iranians and every other tinpot dictator and group of terrorist thugs who suddenly become "allies" and "freedom fighters" when their interests coincide with the aims of US foreign policy. The toppling of the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadeq in Iran and reinstating the Shah. The assassinations of Patrice Lumumba and Ngo Dinh Diem.

Do I really need to go on? I think you can see where I'm going with this.

I keep waiting for someone to specify when things were so much better. I never seem to get an answer.

worse for the middle class since the end of WWII. I can't name one period of time since then that we were in as deep shit as we are now.

or a middle class gay American or pretty much anything other than a miidle class white male -- things have generally gotten progressively better for you since the end of WWII. From an economic standpoint, because of the recession, everyone in the middle class is being stretched, although there is slow improvement.

Of course, this is just looking at it from economic terms. From non-economic terms, would you rather have been an African American, a gay american, a woman, etc. in 1945 than today? In 1950? In 1960? In 1970? In 1980? in 1990? In 2000?

Yes, terrible things took place in other eras since WWII. But what's happened to us over the past decade has affected virtually the entire population, minus the top two or three percent.

So why don't you do everyone a favor and stop the meaningless comparisons. The widespread misery in today's America is unprecedented since the end of WWII. And if you know of a worse era during this period, please clue the rest of us in.

if you were you wouldn't be bemoaning the death of an idyllic America past; that's the sort of nationalist myth that's taught to schoolchildren and that a lot of them sincerely believe if they have no real evidence or experience to contradict it. Black people though? They have a slightly different opinion (being on the receiving end of 400 years of slavery, segregation, and racism tends to give one a more jaundiced view).

But the point is that in terms of meaningless comparisons, saying the America we once knew is gone is pretty meaningless is the idea is to draw a comparison between now and some time when things were better than now. Some things were. And some things weren't

That wasn't even part of your original post. And things are rather different since the end of WWII; at the end of the war the US was pretty much the only major industrial power left standing, and the US was the most powerful country in the world, the successor to the British Empire; today, the US is an empire in relative decline, and American manufacturing can't compete in terms of price with China or in terms of quality with Germany. (That "middle class" you're talking about is really the "working class", also.) There are a lot of reasons for that; part of it is the fact that a lot of domestic industries were very shortsighted and carried on building things of relatively low quality and low efficiency (cars, appliances, etc) compared to foreign competitors; part of it is corporations outsourcing because of lower labour costs and lack of health and safety compliance rules...but none of this has anything at all to do with anything you were saying in your OP.

And in case you haven't noticed the world has recently experienced the worst economic conditions since 1929; look at Greece or Ireland for a moment and consider how lucky you are to be American.

And, added on edit: Real wages, in constant dollars, for the average working American peaked in 1972 and have been declining since. How many of your so-called "middle class" are able to live within their means without debt in the form of mortgages and credit cards? The answer to that is "almost none".

I made 8 dollars an hour working 3 hrs a day at UPS. (A stamp in 1980 cost 15 cents, so multiply everything by three). That's the equivalent of 24 dollars an hour.

I lived in a co-op house and paid 105 dollars for a room and meals (315 dollars/mo in today's money).

I paid 365 dollars a term at a major state college--Purdue University--to take as many courses as I wanted to (1100 dollars today). 15 hours at the cheapest community college would be more than that today. Purdue now charges 307 dollars a credit hour, so taking 20 hours would be roughly TWENTY TIMES as much as I paid (or six times what I paid in inflation adjusted dollars).

Also, good high-paying manufacturing jobs were plentiful.

Need I go on?

consciousness.

Nations are now meaningless in the old jingoism, they are just communities on the world stage.

I cried I think in 05 listening to song on the radio with my daughter driving in the car... it was about how
corporations now ruled the world and the 'disney' and other brands we knew and loved is just bullshit now..... I wish I remembered the song but I don't.

I think........... live locally act globally is still the answer.

Nation states are now passe.

"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre."

- Frank Zappa

They are currently in the process of taking down the scenery.

there is some good TV , gossip or bad weather or terrorism threat
Martial law theoretically could come without resistance depending on the slant provided

I know I sure couldn't and do it without crying my old eyes out. Yep the America we grew up in is gone and we'll never see it again.

rec

too. I think it's a fantasy to feel lots of jobs are coming back (not anything you said) just me lamenting what I think is the future. The world has changed, the way industry works today it does not create all of the jobs as in the past, especially when the US is working hard not to manufacture anything in this country IMO.

Post #53 is right on and somehow I missed it the first time around

FDR said much the same thing in 1944 with his Economic Bill of Rights.


"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans.
I want a party that will stand up for working Americans."
---Paul Wellstone

who take what we want under the guise of spreading democracy. The whole world, except us, realizes we are full of shit.

Good, high wage manufacturing jobs along with all the IT and graphic designers and engineers and teachers.

You gotta have people making stuff, so they can earn money, so they can buy stuff and pay taxes.

We've got 20 million Americans out-of-work or under-employed and our society really is hitting the wall . . .

Smithsonian Magazine Shows Love to Cleveland In Latest Edition
By Eugene McCormick. Published on 03/28/2011 - 1:56pm

If you subscribe to Smithsonian Magazine and love the City of Cleveland you'll have a nice article to read when your postman delivers the mail later today. Unlike Forbes, who put down our city every chance it can, Smithsonian sees the rebirth of Cleveland happening before its eyes. Author Charles Michener, who lived in Cleveland as a child, writes:

Signs of renewed vitality were everywhere. Downtown warehouses had been turned into lofts and restaurants. Several old movie palaces had been transformed into Playhouse Square, the country’s largest performing arts complex after Lincoln Center. The lakefront boasted the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, in a futuristic design by I. M. Pei. The Cleveland Clinic had become a world center of medical innovation and was spawning a growing industry of biotechnology start-ups. How had so depleted a city managed to preserve and enlarge upon so many assets? And could a city that had once been a national leader in industrial patents in the 19th century reinvent itself as an economic powerhouse in the 21st?

Cleveland Leader contribitor Mansfield Frazier gets a mention in piece from Michener who writes:

If there’s one trait that Clevelanders seem to possess in abundance, it’s the ability to reinvent oneself. I’m thinking of a new friend, Mansfield Frazier, an African-American online columnist and entrepreneur. When we first met for lunch, he blandly told me that he had served five federal prison sentences for making counterfeit credit cards. With that behind him, he’s developing a winery in the Hough neighborhood—the scene of a devastating race riot in 1966. A champion talker, he takes his personal motto from Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.”

(Yep. I like that last sentence by Mead :-)

Full article here:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/Clevelands-Signs-of-Renewal.html?c=y&page=2

Also, another article about it:

http://www.freshwatercleveland.com/innovationnews/obamareinvention022411.aspx

McCarthyism.

Jim Crow.

The Cold War.

the Vietnam War.

The Secret War in Cambodia.

Japanese Americans in Camps.

And on and on.

Oh, it were so much better when the gals were in the kitchen and the gays were in the jail, the blacks were in their own schools, yessir, them was the days, why, when I were a lad it were all green hills!

The gains in Civil Rights were dependent on gains in economic security.

When the economy fails, rights fail.

Try eating freedom if you don't believe it.

and 9 percent in 1975. Almost 8 percent in 1949. We've always been on a path of two steps forward, one back. You're correct that gains in rights sometimes slow when the economy is bad (although I would submit that gays have made more gains in terms of their rights (but still not enough) during the current poor economy than when the economy was stronger. The current downturn has been severe and long lasting. But it isn't necessarily permanent and the gains that women have made in terms of getting into the workplace and into boardrooms will not go backwards and hopefully will accelerate. The "we're doomed" meme is just that.

Unemployment was 4.5% in May 2001. It was 4.6% in May 2006. And it was 4.6 in May 2007.

Unemployment topped 8 percent in November 1981 and didn't drop below 8 percent for 27 months. Unemployment has been over 8 percent for about that long during the current downturn and I wouldn't be surprised if stays above 8 percent for another year. But 10 years? Not sure what you are referring to

as my post made clear. Its going to last longer than it did in the 80s, but its far far from being ten years.

since 2002 . . .

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts

The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.

The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.

.

Williams that it is actually over 20%).

http://www.shadowstats.com/

The U-6 includes Marginally attached (never part of any definition of Unemployed) and Part Time for Economic Reasons (again, never part of any definition of unemployed). Now what Williams truthfully points out is that the definition of Discouraged Workers (a subset of Marginally attached) was changed in 1994 to add a time limit of one year. Which makes sense: Someone who has looked recently and is no longer looking because they don't believe they'll be successful does give some insight to the labor market (though it's subjective not objective which is why it hasn't been included since 1967), but seriously, someone who hasn't even looked for a job in 3 years is going to be a good gauge of the current situtation?

Williams claims what he's doing is adding in the Discourage (not all marginally attached, just discouraged) who haven't looked in more than a year. But the math doesn't work. To get 22%, he has to add about around 15 million people. Considering there are only 822,000 discouraged under the current definition, it seems odd that there are 15 million more who haven't looked for work in the last year. And, there are only 6.2 million not already counted as unemployed who say they want a job (this includes the discouraged and other marginally attached). His numbers don't work.

was never raised to expect constant sunshine and soft rains. I also know that the Depression was not a time of rights failing. You can provide no examples of rights failing during the Depression. Rights were in fact expanded during that time. So there you go. I'm sorry if I am not trembling in fear for you or thinking that the rapture is neigh, or whatever. The nation's largest historic civil rights leap forward was the end of slavery, which was won at huge cost, the very opposite of economic security. Ending that institution was a financially existential risk taken because it was the right thing to do. Economic Security ended slavery? Nope.
And GLBT rights are moving forward during this downturn, such as it is. Rights fail, like in NY, where they were just extended to new groups of people, during this awful end of the world sort of time!

Nothing in it suggested nostalgia for the oppression of women, blacks or gays. Quite the opposite in spirit, and that is obvious.

The prison industrial complex has never been bigger, with two million people in jail, most of them thanks to the crazy drug war. And I think you know that people of color are disproportionately present among them.

Even as the GDP grows and the richest 0.1 to 2 percent eat up ever larger shares of wealth and income, median wages have actually been in decline and manufacturing jobs out of country. That's true of women, it's true of gays, and blacks suffer the highest unemployment rates ever.

The people once understood moral outrage, millions marched to end wars; now they watch a new one start every year on TV.

Understanding that does not mean you want to go back in time (which is impossible). Understanding that should be a reason to organize and fight to change it, which is exactly how women, blacks and gays, among others, have won the rights they now have relative to before.

There was a time when many things were worse than today but progress to greater freedom and justice for all was visible.

it put my people in jail. Then we organized and made change, which made things better, not worse. Sorry, those who pine for times that involved others suffering that which you yourself did not have to suffer are positioning their tiny egos as the center of the universe.
Progress to greater freedom is visible, unless you close your eyes to NY, WI, equality on the march. WE have been organizing, winning victories, and fighting for change, I helped win that, and we just won a huge leap forward. This shite the OP is preaching leads to apathy, a lack of will, and utter inaction. This concept that 'things were worse, but there was progress' is daft, we have made things better for our community, and it was worse in the past, the hope of a better day that you seem addicted to was just a series of bad times for others. Now that changes have been made, that progress has happened, it is better, it is better. Not worse.
And only a male, white straight person would pine for days when cops put gay folks in jail, arrested inter racial couples, and hosed down people who wanted to sit at a lunch counter.
The OP is exactly what I said the OP is. It is evident in the point of view. Sorry if that bugs you. Straights need to open their eyes and start learning how to make change, and at least stop claiming that it was better in the bad days and that change is no longer possible. For you, and for the OP, change just might be impossible. That is personal, not societal.
People once understood moral outrage? Oh, please. Those same people sent their kids to 'separate but equal schools'. Where was the outrage over Jim Crow? People have fought wars for all of history, the protests against wars are new, and they still call out millions. Millions march for immigration reform, millions in UK over tuition, millions in American for equality, if you do not see this, that is called 'willful blindness'.
Straight. White. Male. You know it and I know it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States



So however one defines one's people, more people are in prison now -- and above all for what? The drug war. Marijuana arrests.

Youth have less economic opportunity than before. Gay, black, female, straight, white, whatever. And this is because of class war. The rich are taking everything and running everything, like never before. (You certainly sound like you have your economic security, by the way. I notice in your list of labels, you don't accuse anyone of being "middle class.")

Just accept that some things get better and others got worse, and you and the OP are talking about different aspects of a very large country.

The terms here are not clear and agreed upon, so that if you look for my post below, you'd think I was expressing a view opposite to what I'm saying here.

I talked about antiwar protest, you answer with people who accepted "separate but equal." Not necessarily the same groups! (And today we still have separate and unequal, but it's done economically. Compare the schools in Scarsdale to those in Jamaica, Queens.)

This is just an outrageous mischaracterization by you, when you write: "And only a male, white straight person would pine for days when cops put gay folks in jail, arrested inter racial couples, and hosed down people who wanted to sit at a lunch counter."

Bullshit. No one on this thread is pining for that. I certainly am not, and you don't know me.

But I also do not know you.

So are you "pining for" the highest prison population ever? Are you happy and excited about the most comprehensive surveillance state in US history, or a bogus "War on Terror" (now rebranded) that serves as carte blanche for wars around the world? Do you support the highest military spending since World War II? I DON'T THINK SO.

You just want it simple: Today good, yesterday bad. A mirror image of the OP. It all depends.

.

I wonder... And the kids who are now on meds for every kind of "acting out" who Big Pharma makes money off of..

The America we knew was always becoming the one we have.

What the heck does that mean? I think one of the greatest freedoms that we have as parents is that we can home school our children if we choose. In many countries this is not a possibility and parents are actually arrested for doing so.

However, we act like ours is the far greater tragedy.

.... it's over, for now.

I personally believe that at some future time, most likely less than a decade, America will hit rock bottom. And the people will rise from their stupor, hungry but focused, and start demanding change and eventually getting it.

But the next few years are going to be rough. Very rough.

but huge shifts can happen suddenly. Shifts in perception of reality brought on by events that may be on the horizon if we are lucky, for once.

This is not the America I grew up in.

The America you probably grew up in spat and shat on black people, regardless of how beautiful, hardworking, smart and determined they were. And still does.

Ask any person of color (of either sex) and any woman (of any race) if things are so much worse now.

Good God.

And I wish it wasn't so. But I wish it not to be so for all, including African American citizens, women citizens, poor citizens, immigrant citizens, gay and lesbian citizens, and everyone for whom things never were the way they once were for many.

If we could work together to raise all, we could all have a better life.

for many here on DU they see it as "THE NEW BEGINNING!"

I don't know how we can get beyond that disconnect. I really don't. But, anyone who watches that speech or reads the transcript will GET...who this President is and what he is about. He's a Great President to some who Watch and Read...but to others of us we see RED LIGHTS FLASHING...and then YELLOW CAUTION!

What else can I say about this. Maybe it's just a "generational thing." :-(

as president?

was the promise of what my generation worked for and wished for.

But...I'm now learning that old axiom.. "Be Careful What You Wish For...It may be something different than you expected."

I think that our expectations about Obama were really way out of line as to who and what he was and what his own views about America and what a President can do.

I think we were looking for Rainbows and Unicorns...

It was not to be..

and you're not allowed to find out why you are on that list. Saying "I am American" used to be something that could be said with a little pride.

It was stolen from big, fat, wealthy business interests who don't give a fuck about anyone.

It was taken over by ignorant, spineless hateful people who spew their bile and garbage over AM hate radio and Fox News. They have brainwashed the masses.

You don't make money. They do.

You don't work for yourself - you work for their 45th Porsche and sixth vacation home they don't use.

You don't get retirement or your student loans paid off. It goes for fuel for their G5.

And if you're one of the lucky ones who doesn't get outsourced, consider yourself lucky... for now.

America isn't gone. It was stolen.

Because we, as a nation, will not take the initiative to stop climate change, over-fishing, over-consumption.
Capitalism is killing the planet, as well as our country.

we are truly to blame. Not the least of us...but the Owners of US.

Banks sure as fuck aren't going to loan you any money, and don't go crawling to the government for help. That's not their job.

I mean if you think we have it bad, the republicans have had it far worse. 20 years of a democratic president? 26 years of being locked out of congress? Even Ronald Reagan never had a republican controlled HoR. In fact the democrats averaged 256 house seats during Reagan's years in the white house.

Because if you weren't one it was never that great to begin with.

If you are a person who claims to live in reality, where facts matter, it almost seems that you are living in some awful nightmare that never ends. This country has become infected with insanity brought to you by the Republicons and sponsored by corporate terrorists like Koch. The news (propaganda) corporations feed the insanity and distract while the wealthy and powerful lobby for their destructive agenda to the detriment of the country and the majority of the citizenry. It has become ugly indeed. Ohio, Wisconsin, Arizona and Florida just to name a few, seem foreign and at odds with a country that purports to be a shinning beacon of democracy and free speech that other countries should want to model themselves after. Hatred, bigotry, and a lack of compassion and fairness, are hardly a beacon of light, but rather, they are a dark path to the destruction of hope for a future where everyone can still dream and with fairness and equality, still make those dreams come true.
Lou

If you were black/women/gay, etc, it hasn't been any better.

Women back in my factory hometown of 1979 made handsome wages, enough to buy houses and support families, post-divorce.
Blacks in my factory hometown bought houses in subdivisions and lived with their white co-workers.
There was a feeling of progress against how-many-fucking-years of history and a consciousness and drive to get us off of fossil fuels.

Reagan fucked us all. In 1981, that town died and went away in all but name and location.

I dunno if what I experienced as a child was the 'real' america. A carousel in the park (and good parks, too), a theater and art program at the school. Social services- I had a few friends who lived in the projects and who got various aid, put it this way, nobody outright starved...

At this point in time, I suspect it was an post-WW2 aberration, but I'd rather have it than the alternative, which has had no problems manifesting itself thru lies and greed.

that is the only way

I hear a lot of stuff here, and I don't think the United States has been what it's all be chalked up to in a long time... Will it continue that way?

Probably not, but I can't predict what the world will do, likewise... One possibility is that we are in an evolutionary patter here that gets tremendously chaotic before some major change,

The TV age is over, at least. A lot is going to change very drastically in the very near future, also. The oil economy is going to collapse. Whether something comes along in time to replace it is anybody's guess, thanks to the idiocy of Reagan. Meanwhile, we're already on the first bumps of the roller coaster of climate change, and before it's done billions will die. Biodiversity is collapsing, and with it a lot of the foundational health of the planet itself. We may not even be able to breathe the air. However, machines are getting massively smarter, and we're getting smarter too, although for the moment we're losing more in terms of understanding than we're gaining in terms of information. There's also the hope all this change will lead to truly revolutionary transformations, if not in this country first, in others, until it reaches us here. Our understanding of human transformation and human health is also increasing by leaps and bounds, as technology has finally become capable of measuring the neurological benefits of meditation and so on. Plus at some point we'll detect alien bacteria, and at some point much later we may find other intelligence, or better yet, learn to take guidance from other intelligent species on this planet. Also too, women are getting more of a voice globally, and if that happens, there's a good chance of stopping the population explosion, and if we can just ride it over the 9 billion peak down to the 2 billion that's sustainable, we might even learn to co-exist with our precious world without too many lives being lost in the process, although frankly I don't see how that's avoidable -- war is endemic in the world and it has been for a very long time. A billion go hungry now. Will we even notice if that number quadruples?

In short, pessimism is reasonable, but giving up hope is not.

and swiftboating only it and its coordinated UNCHALLENGED repetition is capable of.

which is the main tool used to get us into this disaster. it has only worked because it has been an invisible weapon, ignored by the left. i am amazed at how many give up and stick their iPods in their ears and walk by as their local limbaugh stations take free potshots at their reps all day and calll them leeches and traitors. those stations get a free speech free ride and they need to be challenged with picketing,and local sponsor boycotts, and the universities that broadcast sports on them need to find alternatives instead of enabling and legitimizing racism, lies, and global warming denial.

Let's get busy turning the world right side up again!!

the end of puppet strings. He who has the most money makes the rules. Thats what America has become.

Lawmakers live above everyone else. We need to change legislation so they live AS the rest of us. Cut perks, suspend pay if they don't reach a deal. Cut their government retirement benefits.

The country is a toxic house of cards, with a foundation built on quicksand. Not the rock we once were.

That, in the face of the obvious subversion of the democratic ideal by corporatist, Christianist authoritarian rogue elements in our body politic, we have lost the only tried-and-true mechanism for peaceful change and correction of our ship of state's course -- the ballot box

and

that, in the face of that loss, we haven't found the backbone to respond in less peaceful, though absolutely necessary ways, to regain the consent of the governed as the moral compass and rightful rudder of this nation.


That's not the world many Americans were ever born into, way back to when this country was a gleam in the Founding Parents' eyes.

I hope to see that gleam again. And I don't want it just to be the hollow reflection of overpriced fireworks in the glazed eyes of omniconsumptionists at a muggy, bug-rampant non-Interdependence Day picnic.

And you can't even leave this country to find a better life - you're on the no fly list! My husband and I have thought about leaving for a better place, but our children and grandchildren are here. We would go if they would come with us.

Defend the concepts of better governance and society.

And that is going to have to include better ideas in many places.

I am not worried about No Flys.




Jessica Alba - Sin City Bar Scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfpKjRitYdE


Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5JkHBC5lDs

Bonnie Raitt - I Can't Make You Love Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW9Cu6GYqxo

Bonnie Raitt - Nick Of Time
http://www.123video.nl/playvideos.asp?MovieID=407128

Dire Straits - Walk of Life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZxVC0GB838


Constantine - Bring me to life (Evanescence)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx8d3K_hngw



Have I mentioned I am due beer and travel money.

No one, no one with any real power or sway, represents the middle class, working poor, and those living in poverty.

was never known to millions of Americans. Minorities come to mind. Poor whites come to mind. Immigrants come to mind. Unskilled and non-union labor come to mind. The only thing new is that capital feeds higher on the food chain now.

Wars are lost by the side loosing the will to fight first. Power has little to do with it. Vietnam taught me that.

We're on the brink of becoming insignificant to those who yield the power. We were warned by many people for many years.
We only have ourselves to blame though. While we watched the Tea Nuts showing up at events, when we see more corrupt
pol's being elected by criminal means, when we see them cutting social and educational programs by a few Billion and hear
them tell us $50 Billion cut from the defense budget wouldn't make a difference, it's our fault.
Util we are in the streets like they are in Greece and other ME countries fighting for democracy, we'll continue to lose every
right we have and the divide will end up being a two class system. As it is, we have no say in policy, they're doing what they wish.
Only when we're being bloodied on the streets in demonstrations will they take notice that we've had enough and have no more to give.
All we hear every day is what they want to cut, but I don't hear a word about the wealthy being patriotic and contributing by paying
a few percent more in taxes. That's how greedy they've become, they want every penny they earn. Most saw this coming decades ago.
Now it's reality and we are panicking ? Take to the streets, start organizing. Show them we're mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.

Every American should have an economic emergency plan. It should include as much money as you can save, some canned goods, and a US passport. Canada is looking more appealing by the day.