Reply #8: kind of like his presidency - I didn't think it would ever end

[cosmicdot]

... and, when it was finally over ... so were my thirty-something years ... no New Deals ... no New Frontiers ... no Great Societies ... no, it was the Me Generation and Prozac Nation ...

Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not. - Robert F. Kennedy

"The 1980s became the Me! Me! Me! generation of status seekers. During the 1980s, hostile takeovers, leveraged buyouts, and mega-mergers spawned a new breed of billionaire. Donald Trump, Leona Helmsley, and Ivan Boesky iconed the meteoric rise and fall of the rich and famous. If you've got it, flaunt it and You can have it all! were watchwords. Forbes' list of 400 richest people became more important than its 500 largest companies. Binge buying and credit became a way of life and 'Shop Til you Drop' was the watchword. Labels were everything, even (or especially) for our children."

http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade80.html







It is a revolutionary world we live in. Governments repress their people; and millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich; and wealth is lavished on armaments.

For the fortunate among us, there is the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who enjoy the privilege of education. But that is not the road history has marked for us.

The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American society. -- Robert F. Kennedy