Welcome Back To The Fabulous Fifties
by Bradford Shaw

Hey folks! Let's all jump in the old Chevy, scamper down to the malt shop, and have a cherry-cola with Mom and Pop as we enjoy the fabulous fifties once again.

We, as Americans, have built a bridge back to 1952. That was the last time that all branches of government were Republican controlled. How we have advanced as a race! It couldn't be more obvious with this last election cycle.

Did a local state semi-conspiracy change the outcome of the election in the favor of the local Governors brother like it might have back in the fifties? Can we count on the same period of non-accomplishment such as we had back then? Will we be able to count on a do-nothing right-wing controlled government like we had in the fifties that ignored civil rights and education?

Will big business rape and pillage as they did in the fifties? Or the eighties, for that matter? How much defense spending do we need at this time in history? Wasn't it Dick Cheney that closed all those armed forces facilities in the eighties? Sorry, I digress.

Those fabulous fifties!

That was an era of mass consumption, and we as a people want to have those halcyon days return. We just conveniently have forgotten the price that we paid with our natural resources. Clear cutting and offshore drilling were the norm back then, and with our new President-select, we have seen some very dubious cabinet appointments that have a political history of opposing common sense resource conservation.

So the great fly-over, as I call Middle America, has given us a shrub to return us to those good old days. The good old segregation days when you didn¹t have to worry about losing your job to some uppity Negro or Mexican, even if they could do the job better than you. The good old days of big cars and unhealthy food. Back then you didn¹t have to worry about a woman¹s right to choose except where shoes were concerned. Back then the only foreigners that you had to concern your Caucasian head about were the Italians that just opened up that spaghetti joint across the tracks.

In the fifties, America seemed to be a melting pot of mostly white folks with jobs, so the "back to the fifties" Republicans would have us believe. So a return to those great times would be heaven to those folks.

Well, so much for the progress of the last forty-eight years.

If the bozos that supported this new/old group of clowns lose the family farm due to corporate takeover, blame a lack of retention where history is concerned. I, for one, will not forget the past. Let's hope that the country gets its act together in four years before this retro policy ruins everything.

Everything for most folks anyway.

Not for George.

Or big oil.

Or big business.

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