Who, alive in the 1970's...

...would have ever thought that we would be living under such a corporate controlled fascist government now?

People in prison for pot.
Healthcare a luxury.
Needless wars.
Wall St and not a Main St oriented government.


--

Is the Boss singing "Born in the USA", and Reagan was totally CLUELSS as to the meaning of that song. He tought Bruce was being patriot! Yep, Ronnie was BRILLIANT. lol

Oh, you can add appointing Elvis to his anti-drug campaign. Priceless, that too.

might want to fix that comment.

This OP asks about the 70's. Just saying. Elvis died in 1977, and you are thinking of Nixon's anti drug campaign from years before.

:)

in that pic, and probably was.

That picture says it all about how brilliant our elected officials are.

He appointed the Schafer Commission to expose the evils of pot, only to have the Commission say pot should be legalized. Oops. Nevermind.

Although the rot must already have started before '80 or we'd never have put that motherfucker in the White House.

It was close to 10 years of greed propaganda and I believe was an instrumental component of changing attitudes.

that is saying alot when you consider the crap that was going on then

Reagan just sealed the deal.

Things were not perfect, in fact they started out bad. But as the 70's went on they started to get better and things were moving in the right direction. Until, wham --- Raygun.

x(

I remember things like energy woes, a molasses economy and so forth, and Carter's famous malaise speech.

But Ronnie did send things downhill pretty fast.

Like, about when the OSS became the CIA & we retained a large standing military & changed the War Department to the Department of Defense (Doublethink personified). HST was the first Cold Warrior.

Tricky Dick was elected to Congress that year on a Commie Threat platform, labeling Helen Gahagan Douglas a Communist, Tail Gunner Joe was getting his start, Mao was nailing down China, and a bunch of other things.

"Up With People".

:-(

People in prison for pot.
Healthcare a luxury.
Needless wars. <-- Does anyone remember Vietnam? :crazy:
Wall St and not a Main St oriented government.

We had all of the above, with the possible exception that most people paid cash for most health care services, and the portion of the GDP spent on health care was a whole lot lower than it is now.

We also had some terrible bouts with inflation, and a fuel crisis that had crippling effects on the economy.

...it seemed as if we were moving out of that direction then.

I remember, near the end of the '70s, lots of talk about impending wars and a climate crises. But I don't remember whether it was global warming or a looming ice age.

I walked out of the university life into a recession, and didn't land a halfway decent job until December 1983.

I had to wear a skirt/dress, the guys could wear jeans or anything they liked.

yah, weren't the 70s great. and the boss could pinch your tits and you couldn't do a damn thing about it, sexual harassment wasn't even a word then.

Anyone could wear jeans in the places I saw. And you couldn't have sexual harassment without a protest outside your business the next day.

that was in the seventies...state archivist in NC.

why is it you don't believe it? You think I could have mistaken 20 years away?

wtf.
maybe things were different for you and your job and your day. but this is mine and I'm not lieing, it was like that.

Didn't say you are lying, just that it wasn't typical for where I was.

pinching your "tits"..uh uh...We still had laws

against molestation back then.

If a woman protested, he'd just say he was just kidding around, and if she pushed any harder he'd fire her. She had no real recourse. Hardly ANYONE was successfully sued for sexual harassment in the 70s.

and felt that it was MY fault he did that.

Thinking of taking it to my boss, well was unthinkable. Not an option, never entered my mind.

Yep, the situation sucked around that time. I went to school near Pittsburgh and would have stayed there, but the unemployment was 10%+ on a good day. Had I graduated into a halfway decent economy my entire career arc would have been different. Gotta say it is somewhat worse now, though. My first job was sales in a department store, a job I took so I would have health insurance. At least I GOT health insurance. Today I wouldn't in that circumstance. At least the music was better.

For the most part, it ended in December of '72.

The Watergate scandal and Nixon's resignation shamed our country.

Most everyone was happier after that.

...generation.

It was a short "generation" from 1974 to 1980.

I had 3 cousins that were drafted to fight in it.
I also had 2 uncles that served in the Vietnam War.
The Vietnam War was a family affair for me.

I didn't consider Nixon's resignation shameful at all.
I had been calling for it for several years before he actually resigned.

we got to deal with a generation of vets suffering PTSD, loss of limbs, etc. etc.

The only difference was that I had 100% paid healthcare through my job. I did not have to pay one red cent.

were the "enemy", today citizens are...

hippies were anti american, today the government is anti american. The dirty hippies were right...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKEZoY-TMG4

They were against the corruption, injustice, and needless wars just like the good citizens of today.

Archie Bunker did NOT know what he was talking about.

as "anti-american. They were doing what was right and just...

Bizarre.

But pot was accepted and most police turned their head when they saw it being used. You could go to concerts and people would roll up fatties and pass them down the row, never to be seen again. But that didn't matter because others were doing the same and another would be coming down the row in a minute.

A friend of mine and I went to concert in San Diego. Mid-1970s.

The first half was Leon Redbone; the second half was Tom Waits.

And you're correct, as soon as Redbone came on, the doobies were lit. The whole auditorium was filled with the pleasant aroma of cannabis! :D

Except my friend and I--we had cigars. But nobody complained!

The very Led Zeppelin concert that is portrayed in the movie Almost Famous.

The Redbone/Waits concert was in or near Mission Beach, I believe. Didn't make it to the Led Zeppelin concert, through...:(

I think I found it!: 12/10/78 Tom Waits, Leon Redbone, Roxy Theater
http://www.sandiegoconcertarchive.com/concertarchive/12-december.html

Looks like the Roxy was in Pacific Beach:
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/7169

Man, I'm having a non-drug induced flashback!

Parking was already a pain in the ass back then.

Just a short walk to the Ken Theater. Great moviehouse for classics, foreign films, and "off the wall" films.

The 1970s -- We had so much time and so much to do. What happened? :shrug:

"Youth is wasted on the young" -- George Bernard Shaw

:argh:

And despite searches at the door, the air was filled with the smell of pot.

Before the private-prison system got a hold and now pot-smokers go to prison.

Too much money to be made off incarceration...

During the late 60's and 70's I went to concerts in London and in the US and every concert was doobie smoking time....from the Royal Albert Hall to the Spokane Coliseum.

The cobs were like Honey Badger...they didn't give a shit.

That was every concert in the 1970s. :hippie: The cops only hassled the aggressive drunks/bum trippers in those days. Pot? They didn't even pretend to care unless you were puffing on a doob right in front of them.

the cops would wag their finger at you and confiscate it and then send you on your way. Happened to me several times. We were also not so tightly surveiled. THere were no metal detectors in schools and there was a lot of leeway I experienced to grow. We had walkouts and sitins at school in the early 70's and no one was arrested for it like you would be now. A totally different time.

Everywhere you went, people smoked pot. You could ask anyone on the street if they had a joint...and they usually DID. Seriously. I knew teachers at my high school, the Minister in our town, businessmen/women, policemen, firemen.....everyone smoked pot in the 70s and I am not exaggerating. It was just accepted.

If it was ever decriminalized in my state....I'd plant a pretty garden. :hippie::smoke:

Nixonian/Kissengeresque/Rumsfeldian....ick.

Vietnam ended essentially in December 1972 for US troops. The last birth year subjected to the draft was 1953.

large amounts of your tax dollars off of them, is there even the possibility of such a thing as a needless war? Being in prison for pot, now that's another thing altogether, I certainly don't want someone who smokes pot to be roaming about like free range cattle. Nope, I like security and them dopers would just tear everything apart left to their devices. In 1970 I didn't think the days of the Vietnam War could be outdone and apparently I was terribly wrong.

:hi:

and Gromit cheese pensification moment.... rectifier bridges, who knew electrons needed to cross over one??

This guy I met on the street in Downtown Chi-town sold the deed for the Wheatstone Bridge to me and told me that I could put up toll booths!

He's name wasn't even Bush. And that was in the seventies, too.

Needless wars? Does Vietnam mean anything to you?

How about a disappointing Democrat in the White House? We had one of those in the seventies.

He was better than any president we have had since. But he did have Bush Sr pulling OPECs and Iranian strings at the time to cause turmoil.

There were needless wars then as well. And conscription. Wall St has always ruled.

They got worse under Reagan, much worse. Now things in some places have lightened up since Reagan.

be decriminalized and that if her kids took a few puffs she wouldn't consider it a big deal.

Can you imagine anything like that happening now??

Actually, I can.

Legalization is coming. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but soon.

If you want a realistic portrayl of the economy in the 70s.

The best of the '70's sitcoms. :)

Also a good representation of what was going on at the time.

When I was growing up in the 70s ...

1) The COPs busted kids for pot. Dealers, and those suspected of being dealers, went to prison.

2) My family never had health insurance.

3) Remind me, when did the Vietnam war end? When was Gulf War 1?

4) The deregulation of the banks began in the 1970s when it became possible for a bank to locate in one state that had relaxed regulations, but still sell their financial services across state lines. The deregulation continued from there, through Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton (see specifically Graham-Leech-Bilely), and Bush #2. The financial reform bill passed last year is the first effort to walk the deregulation of the financial industry and the markets back in any fashion.

I thought that if anything, it was anarchic!

instead of pardoned, maybe we wouldn't have had Cheney and Rumsfeld and maybe, just maybe, not Bush. Nixon was an example to the right wing that they could sell anyone as president. When the press took him down, he just walked. But in the 70s, everyone thought the bad guys were gone forever. It was party time. Carter was elected. Solar panels were on the White House. Draft-resisters came home. But the bad guys merely regrouped and overthrew Carter through media assassination. (American Held Hostage - day 1, 2, 3, 4 . . . etc.) Reagan was their first real puppet. He began the dismantling of the New Deal and the right wing war against the middle class and unions began anew.

Thank you.

And the boolshit about not prosecuting those who lied us into 2 wars from a previous adminstration continues to this day.

crimes with Spiro Agnew and BOTH got a slap on the wrist for starting our snowball slide into hell! They BOTH also are the architects behind our 'wonderful' private insurance industry!

Nobody outside the corporate world knew of that insidious memo when it was written in 1971, and they made sure not to tell us. By the time we figured out what was going on, the project (coup?) was essentially complete.

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/powell_memo_lewis.html

Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Their paranoia reminds me of how close we were in the early 70's to a social revolution. They had us 'pegged' for sure.....

And the 'chamber of commerce' has come a long way. Are they finished their makeover yet...???

The hubris is simply breathtaking.

Thanks again for posting this gem.

.

They sucked. My gay friends were not only ridiculed, but beaten and refused jobs.
I was "lucky" to have a boss that thought of me like a daughter and paid me almost as much as his sons.
My sister was still mourning the death of an old boyfriend killed in Nam.
She was also a witness to one of her friends getting the shit beat out of him by cops because he had a joint in his pocket.
Two friends in high school were sent to mental health facilities for wearing pentacles. Another was expelled from school because his parents actually came to his defense.
In the early 70's I went to school with bruises and cigarette burns and the teachers never said anything because my parents were good, wealthy citizens and my father was a very successful business owner.

Progess must be in the eye of the beholder. I think we've come a long way, baby. Though the early 70's were a good decade for muscle cars.

I get enough of "take our country back" from the teapers. Things were not as rosy in any previous decade as people seem to believe.

things weren't all rosy back then but I had hope. I felt like we all had a chance for a decent life. I felt like we could correct some of the things that were wrong in our country. Yep, I had hope and even faith in this country!

All hope is gone now! I never thought it would get this bad. Now I know it will only get much worse.

because I had been following politics for nearly a decade by that time. I knew damned well who was behind St. Ronald the Simple and knew far more about GHW Boosh than anyone else I knew. I knew that GHW was a snakefucker from way back with CIA/MIC connections a mile deep.

Once those two got elected and re-elected I figured that it was only a matter of time before someone like Chimpoleon was installed. What I failed to foresee was that "Democratic" presidents would be, in the main, no different from corporatist Repukes.

I remember the big grin on her face that day. She said "I'm so glad they're giving him a chance!"

I bit my tongue hard.

My first year of college was 1968, so I was alive in the 70s. Back then, it was possible for a young person to hold down a part-time job while going to school and actually paying most if not all of the tuition before graduation. I really, really feel bad for young people coming up. They are not only saddled with enormous debt due to skyrocketing costs in education, but they are having trouble just finding a decent job while still having to pay their massive student loans.

I'd like to see Democrats in each state introduce propositions on the ballots for direct vote that would raise taxes on the rich and have the money go solely and directly to helping pay down college tuition. Education is for me the most important issue for society, among many other key issues. I think such propositions on the State ballots might bring out hundreds of thousands of young people to the polls all across the country in the next elections.

I never had to borrow any money from anyone.

in the late 60's. Imagine that. Tax dollars paid for a college education for NYC residents. Plus they gave us Regents Scholarships (State of NY Board of Regents) - a couple hundred dollars every semester which more than covered books.

I don't know when that ended - we were fighting against the threat of imposition of tuition at that time. I had to drop out of school and leave town (after we occupied the administration building in an anti-Dow Chemical recruiting on campus protest) so I don't know what happened.

Always been that way.

My husband and I were high school graduates, no college, and we both had excellent full time jobs with benefits. We were trained on the job and received regular raises for our good performance. We rented a very affordable apartment, had no trouble paying our bills and were still able to save towards buying our first home. Looking back on it, little did we know that was as good as it would ever get, financially speaking, in our lives. By the time the 80s came around, it was all downhill.

To answer the question: No, I never in my most pessimistic doubts EVER imagined we as a naiton would have come to what we are today. NEVER.

are like a dream now. The best decade I had the pleasure of living through...thank G-d I was old enough to enjoy it. :hippie::smoke:

We had leaders back then. We had people from everywhere fighting and standing up to the Government (Jane Fonda, Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, Rennie Davis and damn near every rock and roll band made anti-war songs and attended rallies and protests), but we DIDN'T have this COMPLICIT MEDIA then! We had awesome people like Dan Rather, Woodward & Bernstein and Walter Cronkite who knew right from wrong and held the Government's feet to the fire. Now the media is government controlled...Murdoch controlled.....PRAVDA. NO ONE in the media...except KO, is on our side, TRULY on our side. They kowtow to the Rethugs and the Gov. Our country is GONE.

Reagan fucked it all up... :grr:

IF you lived in the 70s...rejoice! There will never be another decade like it. I was LUCKY. :)

They do seem like a dream now. But we still had HOPE then. Not verbal hope, but REAL hope.
Nixon stole our faith in our government. Faith was shaken by the JFK assassination, but Nixon completely unnerved the country. I look back at that as the turning point in people beginning to check out of the political process & not voting anymore.
Raygun/HW stole our dream.
Things have certainly gone to h@ll since then, but never expected it to get this bad.
W/Vader turned this country into the USSR. Bread & soup lines to follow.
Too much fear now for life to be really LIVED. I don't remember having bone-rattling fear then like we see now. There wasn't a gestapo feeling like now.
There wasn't the prevalant "Hurray for me, & to h@ll w/you" mentality then.

Damn.

A long, long war.

Nixon.

Energy crisis.

I mean come on. Life sucks and always has. Why would one era be better or worse than any other?

Did you then ever think gays could marry in several states or serve openly in the military? That single mothers could keep their children without being rejected by society? That everyone would have their own phone to cart around?

What about ultrasounds and laser surgery, which has saved so many so much pain? Or mammograms or other life saving tests? \

That anyone could type their opinion onto a screen and have people all over the world see it?

human service, which is what it was in the 70's. No, it wasn't free then, but it was affordable or even free if you went to a clinic.

NOT. :grr: If you haven't watched Sicko...you should!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x41028

Saw Capitalism last week, and loved it.

..who alive in the 70's...at the dawn of the creation of the DEA...would have thought that 40 years hence there would be people in prison for pot.

It's mind boggling!!1!

see also: http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/fed-data/pot-arrests.htm

But I imagine sentencing was more lenient before the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 and the mandatory minimums of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, and there's no question that the incarceration rate skyrocketed under Reagan's watch:

:thumbsup:

by morning. That is quite different than now.

If you were caught with a baggie full of pot they would likely throw it out. Now you can end up with months are even years in jail for amounts people used to carry around.

as our governor in California was a bell weather. Of course those of us on the left didn't imagine he would go anywhere and then Nixon became President. Things started looking bad because we knew he didn't play by the rules, but he was brought down, however, not putting him in prison just gave permission for those who succeeded him to do whatever ends justified the means actions and they knew they didn't have to answer to the law or the people of the United States. They know they can get away with murder and are still at it.

Really? The so-called "war on drugs" started under Nixon. People have been going to jail for various and assorted drugs since the turn of the 20th century and popular press propaganda used images of racial minorities and sinister immigrants to whip up public support for drug policies; in the 1890's and early 1900's it was "Chinamen" luring innocent young white girls into prostitution with opium, in the 1920's and 1930's it was "big buck Negroes" and "jazz musicians" (and in LA, Mexicans) raping innocent young white girls while under the influence of cocaine and marijuana.

Healthcare has always been for those who can afford it or who have insurance to cover it, the US has never had a public health system.

Needless wars? Korea? Vietnam? Hello?

And it was Calvin Coolidge who said "the business of America is business" way back in the 1920's.

Things are not much any different, America is by and large the way it's always been (or at least the way it's been with a few short intervals and slight deviations since more or less the Gilded Age and the dawn of US imperialism).

It was a completely different country. Not perfect, but FAR more liberal. The middle class did fairly well (no McMansions, but we didn't think we needed them), the poor weren't kicked out onto the streets, the Nation was nowhere near as polarized-even through Vietnam it wasn't as bad as it is now. And the media was a completely different animal; no celebrity news (except obituaries) and they went after corporate and government corruption and exposed it more often than not. And no, the war on drugs was not as crazed as it is now and racism (and sexism) was by no means as accepted as it is today by the late 1970's. There simply is no comparison; it was a far, far better time to be an American then.

One of the reasons life "felt" freer, I believe, is the cost of basic living.... Rent and food, was hardly anything. People could, and did, work part time or work a few months and take a few off. Even up until the 80s you could pretty much walk into a few fast food places and almost always get some work in even a fairly bad economy.

Of course, your mileage may vary if you were in an extremely rural area, but then there were actual social programs that would help you with at least your rent and some food.

My Dr. in the late 80's started at $35 for a visit and wages were not much different then now. Of course if you had to go in the hospital it was expensive. So certainly the system was still mostly for those who could afford it for serious illness.

Business is much more cutthroat now, and people are far harder on each other in the workplace. There were always greedy people and ruthless people, but much of society frowned on naked greed until Raygan and "lifestyles of the rich and famous" came along.

would push the nuclear button and blow us all up. Nobody thought he'd get in the White House, and we never dreamed he would create such a legacy of hell

And people were going to prison for pot in the 70s. I seem to recall that Texas had harsh sentences for those caught with marijiana.

If you use one of the classic definitions of a fusion of Corporate and State Power, I'd say we are just about there.

yes, it is the correct term.

We thought that it would be Nixon who brought it about. Then he had his little plumbing problem and we got complacent.

One of them said "I predict we will be living in a Corporate Totalitarian nation we won't recognize within our lifetimes."

"Bullshit, you're just being an alarmist," I said.

Oooops. I was wrong.

...in 1972 we were joking about how one day the oil companies would be running the government. We all laughed confidently at the absurdity of that happening.

.

at how many people alive and cognizant in the 1970s knew this would happen - even people in the '50s and '60s knew it. Even earlier than that. Maybe not exactly how it would all break down, but definitely that as long as a corrupt gang of bankers ran the money system it would happen.

And it was the same then as it is now, people who were trying to warn others about it were marginalized and vilified by media and laughed at by their friends and neighbors. If they refused to shut up worse things often happened to them.

It always amazes me that people think what's going on is something new.

When I was a freshman in high school in 1971 there was a kid in my PE class who was 19 years old.
He kept flunking out of some of his classes so he wouldn't be elgible for the draft.
He had a full mustache while most of rest of us had fuzz on our nuts.

He told me to move one time when we were getting in line for the attendence roll call and I asked him how old he was.
He looked at me for a few seconds, and then he looked away, and then he looked back at me and then he said "I'm 19, why?"
I said "no big deal, I just wondered why someone your age is taking PE."

He looked to see where the coach was in the attendence line so he wouldn't be caught talking in line.
And then he said he had flunked out of PE on purpose by skipping the required 5 mile run we boys had to finish in order to get a grade in that class.
I was shocked because I didn't think they would flunk anyone just for not doing a run like that.

Later on that fall he told me that he purposely flunked out of a few classes so he could stay in high school to avoid the draft.
He said his older brother had been drafted in to the Vietnam War and that he came home all screwed up and was akways tearing shit up in his bedroom and was half crazy.
Later that spring we ran the 5 mile course and finished the class.

The next year that kid retook all of the classes that he had flunked on purpose and he graduated from high school.
In 1973.
After the draft ended.
He was 20 years old.

...as the MOST LIBERAL President of the last 50 years.
It HAS been downhill since then for the Working Class & the Poor since then,
and getting worse.

LBJ and FDR are miles ahead of any other US Presidents. JFK might have been there with FDR had he lived.

(Born in 1944)

But now I'm cynical about most everything.
And I don't think it's just due to the aging process by itself.

corner.
It was more a matter of trying to accellerate change. There seemed to be less thought that we might actually go backwards and stagnate.

I would have thought that you were inventing some sick, dark science fiction.

Media was deregulated and all kinds of buyouts were permitted. My friend knew it was the beginning of the end with all of the consolidations.

And plenty of decent FREE programming to watch!

Needless wars?

We were VERY involved with a certain conflict in Vietnam, as I recall.

Signs all over the place: "Nixon, pull out like your father should have"--pretty explicit!

population.

But mention it only if you want either a fight or a "discussion". Give it a couple of decades and see what people are saying.

It's not that I like fascism. It's the fact that people openly claim we live in it that reconfirms to me that we don't. When people get quiet, I'll get nervous.

I lived through the 70s. I'm much, much, much better off now in just about every way.

I grew up with the clean air act and the EPA established under a Republican president, Nixon. I then saw a good man, Carter, show that leadership is as important as integrity and intelligence. Loved that guy, but he wasn't effective delivering a speech in the age of television. I saw science admired, not denigrated. I saw us land a person on the moon. I remember talk of the whole planet speaking a common language, Esperanto. The music was about love, forgiveness, unity, and peace.

If it wasn't for disco and bell-bottom jeans, it was one sweet ride.

I really miss that idealism and hope.

but even our "Dems" are Republicans now and Repukes are batshit crazy.

no wonder really.

blame the media.

We create this giant monster then bitch when it becomes a corporate, fascist controlled beast.
Gave away all our power and choices and are surprised it got fucked up?
Some people still think its a good idea.
The people have no power because we voted this path.

All we had to do was look around the world.
Once the govt gets enough power/control - FUCKED

Medicare for everyone was a no brainer. Still is. This "Giant Monster" is not here because some of the peasants wanted healthcare for everyone, and we don't have that, and we aren't even moving in that direction. Quite the opposite. The 30 years of Thatcherist Neo Liberalism has been all about removing government regulation of economic activity (while concurrently increasing government regulation of people in their private lives.)

What Right-libertarian watermelon truck did you fall off of?

http://www.amazon.com/Global-Reach-Power-Multinational-Corporations/dp/0671221043

From this review on Amazon:

"For anyone interested in understanding how we arrived at this age of global corporate rule, this book is a must read. It created quite a stir when it was first released in 1973. It was a unsettling read back in the 1970's and I was amazed upon re-reading it now how remarkably well it's predictions have come to pass. This is not a polemical work. It is written in a very dispassionate, clinical tone which only adds to it's quality."

looks very interesting

I'm proud of the country and its government. There is no other place I would live.

Where exactly do you live?

.

1. I want some of your drugs; and

2. :rofl:

See ya 'round troll.

The ignorance of his statement is mind-numbing.
;)

Peace Love and Corporate Fascism.

in fact, I remember Abbie Hoffman being confronted in a televised interview

before the election on his famous Sixties era slogan: "Don't trust anyone over thirty".

His response?..."Now you can't trust anyone UNDER thirty, they're all for Reagan".

I've never voted for a repuke in my life.

i've been wondering when everyone else was going to see it.

Wages were frozen , companies just changed weight , size , packaging and name and charged what they wanted . Were do you think the 12 Oz pound of coffee and 4lb bag of sugar came from ? Business and government were in bed together then as now .

and sad, we have lost our Country to monolithic corporations.

All of these things you listed were true back in the '70's.

In his farewell talk, before getting carted off to prison.

"This country is going to go so far to the right, you won't recognize it".

A number of popular movies were looking at those trends.

Frankly, a lot of us from the 70's would have pleasantly surprised to know that 2011 was not a radioactive wasteland.

The 70s just felt different than the 60s- more self-absorbed and materialistic. Looking back, I think we were already on the long slide down.

I was a child in the 70s and I did not have healthcare - except for emergencies. My mother taught us that 'Officer Friendly' was a lie and to NEVER trust cops - this is when we were given the Officer Friendly coloring books in grade school. Watched Vietnam and Watergate on the news.

I'm white and middle-class, for what it's worth.

lots of people were being but in prison for pot and we were engaged in the needless Viet Nam war. I'm sure there were plenty of people doing without healthcare. This isn't quite as new as you would think.

i can assure you that no one alive in the 70s had an optimistic view of the future, "people in prison for pot, healthcare a luxury, needless wars, wall st oriented gov't" were considered par for the course
and the BEST we could expect

our worst case scenario was complete thermo nuclear destruction of the planet

no one was under any illusion that we would have a "free" society, "free" was actually used as a synonym for capitalism, that is, "the free world" was placed in opposition to those "godless commies" but no one thought it likely that pot would be legalized, health care would be accessible to all, or wars would come to a close -- and it was actually put forward that it would be a good thing if capitalism triumphed -- people who held socialist or more progressive beliefs had to fear physical beatdowns if they voiced their opinions in public

I guess you know all about it , to so boldly speak for "all of us".

Sweety, its what you DON"T know that is important. and vast.