Over all - was life better 50 years go today - or was it worse?

[Douglas Carpenter]

Sorry, I have to admit that I was inspired by another thread posted by Brigid:

Does anyone else ever wonder what the history books will say about this era 50 years from now?

If this country is still around, and if there are any history books and people able to read them, that is?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024066794

So I had to ask myself, "what would we say about the era of 50 years ago?"


50 years ago was 1963 - The President was going to be shot - the Beatles had not yet appeared on Ed Sullivan - The Vietnam War was starting to escalate with almost no opposition in the United States, The whole "hippie, 60's thing had not really started yet. 30% of the labor force was unionized and factories were expanding, nobody had yet started talking about gay liberation and it was relatively liberal to consider homosexuality a sickness rather than a crime, help wanted sections were carefully divided between "help wanted men" and "help wanted women" - almost no one in America questioned the righteousness of the cold war, the civil rights movement was taking a hold but lot of people didn't believe in it and segregation was a still very much alive, most Americans went to church and believed in God,- any small town in America would have at least one train station and a bus station where you could catch a train or a bus to anywhere in North America - Every small town in America had its own lively downtown with locally owned stores, shops and diners, lots of people had their milk and even their bread delivered. there was always a neighborhood grocery store and the owner of that little store earned a middle class living and was a respected member of the community like the minister, the doctor or the school principle, the family farm and the locally owned factory was still very much alive

Was it the good old days? or Was it the dark ages?

32 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Over all life was worse then and we have made a lot of progress
	4 (13%)
	Over al life was better then and we have over all gone backwards
	8 (25%)
	We have gone forward in some ways and backwards in other ways
	20 (63%)
	I miss the snacks they used to have at county fairs and circuses
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[TexasProgresive]

1. Not voting-the answer is too complex for a poll

I guess Dickens said it best, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

It was a great time to be growing up if you were white, male and middle class. My friends with wealthy parents had every thing money can buy, but money can't buy love, can it? My friends who were poor had it bad but many were better off then the rich kids because they had love from their families.

White men had the best jobs, women who had to work had the most menial - regardless of race.

Public education including college was good and accessible to many, because of low tuitions at state funded schools many were able to work through school-paying their own way.

The draft was in effect even if Vietnam had not really gotten hot. But if one went in the service their was the GI bill which would help with buying a house and/or higher education.

Edited to add: I voted after all some good some bad

[kelliekat44]

35. Correct! Everything is relative. Depends on who you are, where you were, what race, what gender et

Some people were really bad off 50 years ago but didn't know it because they could not readily compare themselves to others as they can do now. Maybe the question should be wheter you were happier 50 years ago? It has to do with your political persuastion now and then and a lot of other factors that one question cannot capture.

[Warpy]

2. 1963 still had both the New Deal and social regimentation in place

We lost the former, men's wages declining so quickly that married women and mothers have become a major part of the work force because it takes two paychecks to raise the kids and those paychecks don't extend to educating them and/or saving for retirement like one paycheck did in 1963.

However, it's less of a horror show out there for women and for people of color as the rigid race and sex based caste system was broken down.

In 1963, unskilled male workers and skilled female workers were at the bottom of the pay scale, but that scale was a solid enough floor that both were able to survive above the poverty line on full time wages. The pill had just come out, making childbirth a choice instead of a catastrophe for women who took it faithfully. Unfortunately, single women had to do a lot of lying to get it and abortion would remain illegal for another 11 years. Most men's rooms had a condom dispenser.

Economically, we've all been screwed over, no matter which skin color or sex we are. However, life has improved greatly especially for women but also men of color. There is a lot more we need to do to achieve full equality, but we are likely to get there at some point.

The next revolution will be the economic one. Let's hope they don't force us to accept the re enslavement of women and the near enslavement of men of color to accomplish it.

[HooptieWagon]

3. Socially, we have progressed.

Of course, gay marriage was unthinkable 50 years ago. Racism was worse. Pollution standards were non'existant. Lead from gasoline was polluting the ground. Industrial waste and sewage was dumped into rivers and bays. There were still many homes with no telephone, some with no electricity. Autos were less safe, as were roads.

Economically, we have regressed. Most wages provided for a family of 4. Housing was affordable. A doctor visit was affordable. A young person could work their way through college, if necessary. GI Bill paid for college for many.
50 years ago, individual taxes were only one third of total tax revenue by federal govt despite top rate having just been lowered to 70% from 90%. Corporations paid two thirds of federal tax revenue. Now, individuals pay 2/3 of federal tax revenue, despite a top rate of 37%, and corporations only pay one third. State and local taxes have increased, which hit the poor harder since they're regressive, and utility rates have soared. The number of poor have increased, and the middle class has shrunk, and it's much more difficult now for the poor to reach middle class. Almost impossible, in fact.

[Scuba]

17. Thanks, you've summed up my thoughts quite accurately.

I'd only add that the threat of nuclear annihalation has been replaced with the threat of our own MIC starving the People in the name of war profits.

[HooptieWagon]

25. After TMI, Chernobyl, and Fukushima....

I'm not sure the nuclear threat has diminished. Just that sudden annhillation threat has been replaced by slow poisoning.

[Scuba]

26. Sadly, I can't disagree.

[enough]

4. K was 19 in 1963.

To my mind, the greatest change is in the lives of women. Even though things seem incredibly sexist now, it was much worse back then. Women now work routinely in every profession. Not so back then. I know many women who were "the first" to work prominently in their fields.

Abortion was illegal. Finding an abortion was dangerous, expensive, and full of stigma, shame, and psychological peril. And to repeat, DANGEROUS: people died.

Women's love of physical activity was nowhere near where it is now. I go to the gym as a 70-year-old woman and get huge energy from joining the daily vitality of women of all ages challenging themselves and experiencing that mind/body joy. Out on the trails, on the fields, in the water, everywhere, women are there doing every sport, and nobody thinks twice about it. In 1963, this was available to some women, but not in the wonderfully ordinary the way it is now.

Having written this, I realize that there are two other great areas where the same could be said. As a straight white woman, I haven't said anything about race or sexual orientation. But in fact the changes in both those areas are as great or greater. In the same way, the progress is huge, yet the challenges are still enormous.

[Cleita]

5. Although we don't have all the gadgets and electronic devices we do today,

I was pounding away at my manual Smith Corona typewriter with a wad of carbon paper and copy paper behind the original (there was no Zerox then) when a friend called to ask me if I heard about Kennedy. Back then employers didn't mind if you got personal calls because most of us didn't have telephones, a luxury and they knew that. We also smoked at our desks if we were smokers and no one objected if you had a couple of beers or a glass of wine with your lunch.

I made enough money, even though I made 63% of what the janitor made to pay rent, buy food and gas and go out with my friends and co-workers on Friday. I seldom had to work overtime or Saturdays because the law said that I had to be paid time and a half for it. My car had stick shift but gas was less than $1 a gallon. TV was free. Basically, only five stations in LA and rabbit ears did the trick. The programming and news were quality on the networks and pretty amateurish in the local stations, but they brought us Lawrence Welk and Liberace!

The library was Google, but back then they were well stocked and operated weekends and evenings.
There were quality bookstores with a variety of offerings and music stores that would let you listen to albums before you bought them. Magazines and newspapers were varied and quality writing was the norm. Radio had a variety of really good programming, not the propaganda dreck of today or wtired DJ playlists of today.

True, women's rights and civil rights were waiting to happen. We were in a Cold War with Russia but not in a real shooting war yet. Actually, life was good.

[gollygee]

6. People lacked a lot of civil rights in 1963

The good thing is that more people were activists. People seem more apathetic now.

[RKP5637]

27. Definitely, many often now seem to have the attitude you can't fight the system. Also, for example,

when OWS tried to at least bring populace attention to the hardships in this country many scoffed it off as a bunch of ragtag people expecting them to pull it off like a bunch of polished political professionals while they sat on their asses and did nothing.

[Nye Bevan]

7. It's pretty obvious how minorities or gays would vote in this poll.

I think the results so far are pretty much a reflection of DU's white heterosexual base.

[gollygee]

8. Women too

Abortion was illegal. Women were sent up to visit an aunt for a few months and then were forced to place their babies for adoption regardless of whether they wanted to.

[Number23]

66. Quite possibly the first time I've agreed with you. On anything.

But we certainly agree here.

And the fact that 13% think that things have gotten WORSE since the 1950s is simply... astonishing.

[Spider Jerusalem]

9. Better for whom and how? Worse for whom and how?

If you're not white, male, heterosexual, and Christian, the answer is pretty obviously "worse".

Economically? The median household income in 1963 was $6200 ($46K in inflation-adjusted dollars); today it's $44K. Which represents a significant decline in earning ability and purchasing power, relatively speaking, since that 1963 income came from a single-earner family and not one where both spouses worked (as is more common today). But then it's unrealistic to look at the income levels of the time and presume they're anything like "normal", anyway; the economic climate of the 1945-1965 era was something that won't happen again. The USA was the only major industrial power left standing after WWII and the USA was the world's leading producer of oil. Since then the US has declined relative to the rest of the world with the recovery of Europe and the rise of first Japan and now China; and the rest of the world has gained; this is overall a good thing, in many ways. (Good certainly for the rest of the world, where 95% of people aren't Americans.)

[KentuckyWoman]

10. 50 yrs ago my 6 yr old brother almost died

He fell 15 ft out of a tree onto his head. 3 days in a Kentucky hospital who's fanciest equipment was a single xray machine. Then off to Louisville for months. No health insurance.

No doubt a lot of charity care. Dad took work on other farms in for 5 or 6 years to pay for our part. Mom already worked full time but took on some of dad's chores and did extras like sewing for people.

What made it work was the IRS did not care about small money then. The egg and butter money, the few dollars taking odd jobs or selling off a few things never hit the radar then. Plus medicine was not thought of as a big investment vehicle yet so providers took payments.

No insurance. Tough times. No bankruptcy tjough.

[Douglas Carpenter]

11. I remember in about 65 my local small town newspaper carrying a headline news story that the local

hospital was raising their rate for a semi-private room from $21 per night to $28 per night. A dental filling at the local dentist was $6 - so medical expenses were simply not the same then - nor was the technology

[KentuckyWoman]

59. technology

I often wonder how much of the technology actually improves length and quality of life. Or does it mostly shovel money to the owners and handlers of the technology?

Profits over people seems to be the norm now.

[Douglas Carpenter]

62. frankly it does both. Working in the healthcare field - there is no doubt whatsoever that the

advancements in medical technology have been tremendous. They can now save life and limb on a scale that would have been unimaginable 50 years ago. The quality of the technology is undoubtedly made treatment a lot less dangerous and a lot less painful;. But having said that - there is a fair amount of constant upgrading that is not necessarily improving the quality of patient care - it is all bells and whistles and pushed largely to increase revenues. So, it is both - far better patient care and far more exploitation for profit.

[LostOne4Ever]

12. It was worse

If you were not a white heterosexual male it was worse. Much worse.

[Starry Messenger]

13. Pre-Roe vs. Wade must have sucked as well

I can't imagine the pleasures of mom and pop stores outweigh the lack of African American civil rights or women's equality.

[OldHippieChick]

44. I wish more young women realized this

I too well remember what had to be done by some of my friends back than. It was fairly horrific.

[Kablooie]

14. We've gone forward socially but dropped back economically.

And gone sideways electronically.

[FiveGoodMen]

56. I think the economics are pretty social, too

We've decided to let the filthy rich become hellishly rich and to let the poor dangle.

Top tax bracket was 91% once. (IIRC)

Those are value (social) decisions.

[WCGreen]

15. There was a whole lot of racial problems that have been mainstreamed and then

subsided as integration at all levels started in with Ike and Little Rock.

A whole lot of communities are integrated.

A whole wonderful banquet of mainstreamed ethnic assimilation give the US a rich cultural stew.

Education is almost universal.

Environmental issues are being addressed instead of ignored.

College education has been democratized with the community college in every community has become the norm.

What the original post says about mid century America is also gone the way of Amos and Andy on the radio.

There was no interstate system. For every little town is true but for every Mayberry there was grinding sharecropping.

For every Mayberry there was a Bugtussel, the home of the Clampet family before Jed shot some oil on his property and moved to Beverly Hills.

Btw, we had milk and bread and potato ships delivered to our homes up until the mid 6o's here in Northeast Ohio.

[Douglas Carpenter]

34. well I can't disagree with that. Even many of the social programs that lift people out of poverty

like Food Stamps and Medicaid had not even started yet. College education was still pretty much class stratified although it was starting to improve - But the explosion of community junior colleges and the availability of grants and low interest student loans was still very limited. Of course today the skyrocketing cost of tuition is turning graduates into long term debtors on a scale that did not exist back then.

I suppose I can think of a few things that might make that era seem nicer than our current world. There was more of a sense of community back then. But also those communities were extremely judgmental by current standards. The upper 70% were probably less economically stressed than the upper 70% are today with fewer debts and more likelihood of savings. But at the bottom of the scale - there were not the programs that cam in with the Great Society to help see that people could actually eat and have minimal medical care.

[WCGreen]

64. My sister owes close to 100k in student loans.

I graduated from college in the early 80's and was able to pay most of my tuition as I went.

I think I owed about $1,500 when I met MrsWCGreen in 1986. We paid it down by 1988.

[Warren DeMontague]

16. It was worse. Absolutely, without question, worse.

But then I'm one of those most-hated critters, an unrepentant optimist.

[treestar]

18. definitely things are better now

obviously. Did any state have gay marriage then? Were there any women in the Senate or House or as Governors? 50 years ago women were still expected to get married and have babies, no careers.

Medicine is much better. What then required surgery can now be outpatient or found by MRI or ultrasound. People could die from things that can be cured now.

Depression is treated and not considered a character flaw, as it would have been then.

It was before the Civil Rights Act. Jim Crow laws were in effect.

There was not the same technology that could predict storms and other bad weather, thus there were more deaths due to that, more plane crashes and auto accidents. There were no laws about wearing seat belts.

[hfojvt]

39. the first woman became a Senator in 1922

only two years after women got the vote. Served for one whole day.

The second did not happen until 1931

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

In 1963 there was ONE female Senator, Maurine Neuberger, from Oregon who served a single term plus a few months. Likely there were more than that in the House, but who knows. Wisconsin did not elect a woman to Congress until 1998, when it had no choice because both the Republican and Democratic candidates were women - gay women.

And actually 50 years ago, two of my aunts were working in their careers. One was a graduate from Berea college. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berea_College

[Douglas Carpenter]

19. here is one thing we had back then - that we don't have today

children could pretend to smoke -- just like daddy

[Douglas Carpenter]

20. and you could order all kinds of exciting stuff from comic book ads -

Last edited Thu Nov 21, 2013, 02:00 PM - Edit history (1)

they were ALL scams - but nothing is perfect

[Recursion]

21. Are you a minority, a woman, and/or LGBTQ?

Your answer to that question may have a lot to do with your answer to that poll...

[reformist2]

22. The level of hate is lower, but the level of crazy is higher.

[RKP5637]

28. As one of my friends was saying, it's easier for the crazies to get the microphone and

to be published now with no effort. MSM goes after them for entertainment and anyone can post on the internet with a following base. ... before, the scope was small, maybe the local paper if at all, the telephone and maybe some small town meetings ... now, it's instantly spread across the world.

[Jim Lane]

23. Straight white male says things were worse then

True, I've lost some privileges and advantages -- but they were unjust anyway.

Meanwhile, I've benefited from scientific advances. According to my oncologist, 50 years ago the treatment for my cancer would have consisted of giving me morphine to ease my final days. Instead, here I am, more than ten years cancer-free.

My focus on progress might fade, however, if you do another poll, asking for predictions for 50 years from now. Certainly there will be more scientific advances that benefit people -- but the effects of overpopulation (including but not limited to climate change) will really be kicking in. My guess is that things will be worse overall in 2063 than they are today.

[renie408]

24. The Golden Age Fallacy

This is one of the most common fallacies I come across when arguing with conservatives. They hearken back to some misty era when men were men and women were stay at home moms and the world was a better place.

Bullshit.

[RKP5637]

30. Definitely! I didn't think the world was that better then ... yep, it's not perfect now, but

I sure wouldn't want to live that era again. They long for the Archie Bunker life.

[dchill]

32. Archie Bunker - hell...

They want to be slaveholders - of all races.

[RKP5637]

38. What America forgets to say when it boasts to other countries about how great

and equal it is in la la land, that that's only for the chosen few. Millions of people have been fucked over in this country since its beginning. And now they want to escalate it, as you said, "slaveholders - of all races" and frankly some countries.

[JustAnotherGen]

29. I posted this on another thread this past weekend

Scenario - Black college educated affluent woman of 40 years of age . . .

I would rather anally rend and torture myself than be stuck in that hell hole that was America back then. I'm very very lucky to be born to the people I was born to at the time I was born.


America was the worst effin' place in the world back then . . . Yep Trayvon's murderer walked free - but at least Trayvon got his day in court. That wasn't happening in 1963.

[hfojvt]

46. did Coretta Scott King really think she was living in a hell hole?

the worst place in the world back then? Worse than South Africa? Worse than Bangladesh? Worse than China or Romania?

Bill Cosby is about my dad's age and got married in 1964. As a college educated black man in 1964 he was doing better than my own 31 year old dad, and his wife was probably not doing too bad in the hell hole either.

Colin Powell is the same age as Cosby, and like my dad was a Geology major in college. He seems to have done pretty good in the hell hole of America.

There are probably other examples, except that they are not any more famous than my dad (and mom) who also had pretty good lives. Mostly, of course, because of what happened in 1962 (one of their sons was born). It wasn't THAT bad for everybody.

[JustAnotherGen]

48. And my dad was born

In Alabama in 1941.

To college educated parents.

His mother a bi-racial woman born at the turn of the century in Mississippi - and her daddy was a black physician. And my grandfather - was the grandson of a man who BOUGHT his first ten acres from the people that used to own him and cut his toes off for running away (he eventually got away and came back smug but that's another post for another day).

My father is one of ten children. My oldest Aunt - Aunt Clara is 88. The youngest surving of the siblings is now 75.

I'm sorry - but you don't 'know' black people. You don't have the family narrative, the first hand experience, and the direct knowledge of women who loved you and guided you as a young black woman and point blank told you - you have it much better now. .

I know more than you. It's my family. It's my history. Not yours.
Your knowledge is limited to Bill Cosby, a murdered man's wife, and a Republican!

I'm assuming my father got farther ahead in this life than yours did - because he was at the same space and place (Wes Clarke is Uncle Wes to me and my mother could not stand Tiger Woods daddy) as Collin Powell in the 1960's. . . so I'm assuming he won the race because:

In spite of his country that wouldn't even let the Army Captain vote - he defied their limitations and won the race. He worked harder and longer and showed a mental acuity and strength that pushed him through.

It's not because America gave him something it didn't give the white guy. I'm sorry but it's not. And Colin Powell, Bill Cosby and Mrs. King - they didn't get something either because they were black.


They - including my daddy - didn't take ANYTHING from your father. You have to let go of that anger.

[hfojvt]

49. what anger?

My dad did pretty well, although not as well as Cosby or Powell, or, arguably, King.

And I did not say they went as far as they did because they were black. Only that apparently America of the 1950s and 1960s did allow/provide opportunities for SOME black people.

My knowledge is limited to famous black people. Family narratives and data are not available to me for the 1960s.

But not everybody was living in Alabama either.

[JustAnotherGen]

51. It just kind of came across

"angry"

And you are right - as the example I provided showed. But - it came at a price. It came with the price of HAVING to go vote in a group of men (my grandmother did not vote out of fear for her life until 1968) with guns on the back of a truck.

That's what it was like for the well educated and rich black folks in the South back then. The land owners and the business owners had to do that. I.E. The high tax payers.

That is my family experience. And that was having it 'good' in the South. They were rare - but they existed. And trust me - I'd rather be a rich black (bi-racial) woman in NJ - born in 1973 than my grandmother's experience.


If you weren't a member of her family - she didn't like white people. If I'd been born in 1900 in Mississippi bi-racial - I don't think I would have liked white folks either. She was the ONLY person that flipped a shit when my father brought my mother home.

Because she felt in 1969 that my father was handing them both a death sentence.

It was THAT bad.

My husband (then boyfriend) and I were in South Carolina a few years ago and NONE of the stuff that happened to my parents when they were in hell at Fort Knox happened to us. I.E. My parents getting run off the road when my mom was 8 months pregnant by some bigots in a truck.

It was THAT bad.

Now in 1977 someone (teenager two doors down) graffiti-ed "Keep America Clean Kill the N*ggers" on an interior garage wall when our house was being built. That was outside of Rochester NY . . . My dad just went down and spoke to his parents in his Green Beret uniform and set them straight. The entire family.

His father had to take it or put his whole family at risk.

Because you know what? It was THAT bad then.

And now - in NJ - in 2013 - well me? I married a man off the plane from Southern Italy. Do that to his wife's house - and he's gonna get ya! No talking - retaliation. That's The Gio!

[Number23]

63. Perfect post, JAG. And it ties in perfectly with what we've been discussing in the AA forum, huh?

The fact that the open discrimination in every form of life and the abject misery of people of color was summed up by six words in the OP ("segregation was a still very much alive&quot sums up perfectly how selfish, skewed and ignorant so much of this pining for the Good Old Days is.

[dchill]

31. The good old days don't...

and never did, exist.

[Art_from_Ark]

60. Maybe on a national level, they don't

but on an individual level, they certainly can exist.

[Freddie]

33. Hugely worse for women!

My Mom was an elementary teacher, was forced to quit when her pregnancy became obvious. That's how it was back then and she be never even questioned it. Elementary teachers were paid less than high school teachers too, because more high school teachers were men.

[lumberjack_jeff]

36. This is a very tough question.

It is not at all clear.

On the one hand the rights of women and minorities have much improved as a result of the civil rights act and subsequent legislation. On the other hand, economically we are not as well off.

[hunter]

37. It was the dark ages so far as my own medical care has gone.

Asthma and mental health issues were blamed entirely on parents (mostly mothers) or on the individual suffering these ailments.

In these modern times I simply take a couple of meds and it's all manageable.

I haven't been to an E.R. for these health issues since 1988 and the meds today are even better. What were once major health problems for me have become minor inconveniences. If I ever found myself back in the world of 1963 medicine I'd be in a pretty grim situation. I know, because I lived there, but thankfully not as an adult. As in adult in 1963 I'd have been dead or I'd be a crazy hermit living in the desert. (Some of my adult relatives actually were crazy hermits living in the desert...)

It's ironic that we've learned farm kids living with dirt suffer less asthma and other chronic immunological problems than kids raised in clean 1950's suburban utopias. My mom heard it over and over again, sometimes from medical professionals, that her housekeeping skills were inadequate or that she had a "smothering" personality. Our home situation was in reality so far out of the norm, beyond the imagination of conservative medical professionals, amateur psychologists, and "concerned" teachers, none of these criticisms were even applicable. I grew up in a household full of semi-feral artists, scientists, and dreamers. As kids we had full run of the place. All the neighborhood kids were at our house too, even a few who had been banned from the place by their parents.

There's a genetic component to my chronic health problems but I'm pretty sure the greater problem was air and water pollution. Lead in the smog we breathed, everything drenched in insecticides that have since been banned, mercury and other crap in the fish caught in Santa Monica Bay we ate, etc., etc., etc.

I remember horrible smoggy days in Pasadena or the San Fernando Valley of the sort that are now history, days when it hurt to breathe and everyones' eyes were red and watery, their throats sore, and you'd go to the grocery store with mom or grandma and chain-smoking workers and patrons would drop cigarette butts on the floor and crush them under their feet to be swept up by "stock boys," many of these "boys" middle aged (or even elderly) Black, Mexican, or Asian men.

That was not a better world.

[raccoon]

40. No one has mentioned something that has greatly improved many people's lives since 1963...

AIR CONDITIONING!!!!!!!

In homes and cars too.

[Douglas Carpenter]

41. and remote controls for the television

Remember how we had to get up and walk all the way across the room and turn the television knob by hand? Such suffering, it were the days when Christ and Apostles slept

[raccoon]

45. That's probably why there was less obesity back then. nt

[Blue_Roses]

42. I was two-years-old

nt

[CK_John]

43. It all depends on your race and economic status and your general health

no matter the when.

[Egalitarian Thug]

47. Both better and worse of course, but from a historical perspective the last half

century has become worse for more Americans. Picking 1963 is a good choice as it was a decisive year in the turmoil that was growing due to rising tensions amongst a wide range of factions.

It is far better today if you are gay, it is far better if you are a woman, it is worse for all men that don't belong to the parasite class, worse still if you are a man other than white, and much, much worse if you are a kid. Health care is better, if you have access to it, but it is much worse overall for most people since it has been converted from a social responsibility into a salable commodity owned by the parasite class.

Life is much worse for the people that built this nation through hard work, innovation, tenacity, and skilled labor as all of these assets have virtually no value any longer.

And perhaps the biggest, and most destructive change has been the perversion of the American mind. The foundations of what being an American meant 50 years ago have all but disappeared.

We are much, much less thoughtful and meaner than we once were, and while there have always been those with little or no education, today we have something approaching a majority of complete ignoramuses that believe they are educated and possess an understanding of the workings or the world that they, in fact, utterly lack. We have accepted a complete, media created fantasy as reality and have become so ignorant of reality that when the fantasy fails (because it is a fantasy, duh), we are at a loss to understand why it failed.

50 years ago America was a nation coming into a time of change and the accompanying turmoil with a strong trajectory toward being better. Today America is a nation in a time of change and the accompanying turmoil with a strong trajectory toward getting worse.

[Blue_In_AK]

50. It's been kind of a bell curve.

Things got better for a while, now they're going back to where we were before we made all the progress.

[upaloopa]

52. Much depended on your race and your sex and sexual

preference.
There wasn't one a one size fits all life style.
The reason there was a hippie movement and a civil rights movement and a women's movement and a gay rights movement was because those groups were oppressed.
The reason for the assassinations was because the oppressors feared losing control.
At any time we all could have been wiped off the earth in a nuclear war.
The conservatism the Tea Party wants in place now was in place back then.
For a white male life wasn't too bad.
For everyone else there were chains to throw off.

[LittleBlue]

53. Biggest change for the worse is the loss of economic power

for the 99%. 50 years ago, we had unions and one income was sufficient. Now, two incomes may not be sufficient. The debt culture has eroded all the wealth of the bottom 30% to zero. Debt crushes college graduates.

The economic power has shifted so dramatically to favor the 1% that we're approaching the poverty rates of the 1960s. That's 50 years ago, but recall that we've had massive productivity gains in the last 5 decades because of women entering the workforce, technology gains, etc. So those gains have gone to the upper economic classes because the lower economic classes lost all bargaining power with the decline of unions and increase in political bribery. If wealth was shared as fairly as it was 50 years ago, that poverty rate would fall like a rock because those wealth increases would benefit everyone.

[zipplewrath]

54. Collapse of the middle class

college was "affordable". People lived in "starter homes". There was a burgeoning middle class, including the elderly/retired middle class. Civil rights were finally kicking in.

It was better, not that there weren't some bad things going on that needed huge improvements. And disease killed more faster.

[hunter]

58. I graduated from an excellent university with zero student loans.

My first few years in college were free and I often got grants and scholarships to pay for books and stuff.

My dad was a union member with an excellent health plan and he and my mom are now enjoying their retirement with comfortable pensions, Social Security, and good health care.

Meanwhile my wife and I live continuously on the edge of financial ruin, our credit rating has been destroyed by medical bills we often can't pay, and our kid's college expenses are something that would have been inconceivable when my wife and I went to school. Despite the fact that in "inflation adjusted" dollars my wife earns more than my dad ever did.

That's the "worse" now.

But there's a reason I fly my rainbow flag... as a weird kid and young adult I was an outcast and many of my friends and friendly acquaintances were outcasts too. The LGBT among them suffered more than I ever did. Too many died.

[WinkyDink]

55. Well, up to and including 11/21/63, it was good. Then it went all to Hell, and stayed.

[Thirties Child]

57. Better for some, worse for some

I was 28 in 1963, we had just been transferred to Atlanta from D.C. because UPI saw what was coming in Civil Rights and was setting up a good bureau to handle it.

Appliances that were built in 1963 lasted, cars didn't. Going back a few years, into the 50s, in 1957 the Dallas Times Herald hired me at $60 a week, paid $65 a week to a guy who had also just graduated, told me men were paid more because they had a family to raise. Going back even earlier, into the late 1940s, early 1950s, I lived in a small town on the plains, ate meat that was bought on the hoof, eggs laid by free-range chickens. Gas was 25 cents a gallon and if we drove on two-lane roads. The passenger seat was called the "suicide seat" because the passenger went through the windshield in an accident. There were no Interstates or seat belts.

So - better for some, worse for some, better in some things, worse in some things. Do I want to go back? No.

[Liberal_in_LA]

61. worse. jim crow laws

[u4ic]

65. So much was not talked about

And that gives the impression, to many, it was a better time. The 'societal ills' that people bemoan about now were still there, just swept under the carpet rather than front page news like they are currently.

Being a woman, minority, lgbtq, having a disability or mental health issue, or not in the limited box society expected would have been difficult. And while it would have been much better for the middle class white male, being the sole breadwinner often meant being stuck in jobs for life that you hated because it was all up to you, counting down the years til retirement.

As usual, if you were rich you had it made. That hasn't changed in thousands of years...

[raccoon]

67. "The 'societal ills' that people bemoan about now were still there, just swept under the carpet

rather than front page news like they are currently."

Amen to that! Including, but not limited to, spouse beating, child abuse, incest, all flavors of rape,
alcoholism, drug addiction...feel free to add others.

[u4ic]

68. Yep

Even the breakdown of the family the religious right rails on about now, but it didn't look like that then because the husband and wife stayed together. The marriage, and the cohesiveness, would have been long gone, though. It was almost always the wife\mothers fault.

[Douglas Carpenter]

69. another kick

[Warren DeMontague]

70. What were they saying on the internet about this topic in 1963?

Oh, wait.