Why did people come out of the Depression with different attitudes?

[hedgehog]

I asked about people's family memories of the Depression on another thread, and several mentioned the absolute reverence for FDR. My mother often praises him. Yet Ronald Reagan came along and manged to convince many people that the government is the enemy and he started to unravel the safety net that FDR had worked so hard to make. How and why did so many people forget what happened?

[Homer Wells]

1. One word--FEAR

The people had a horrible time during the depression, and FDR brought them wonderful hope, and many programs to help them climb out of their financial abyss.

The Reagan gang and subsequent Repuke administrations taught the people to FEAR their own shadows. NO matter where you go or what you are in contact with, there is someone there telling us we should be afraid, very afraid, and that they are the only ones who can save them. I guess the modern day politicians could be referred to as "Anti-Roosevelts"

[TahitiNut]

3. Remember, there's one fear that's well-grounded

Fear of fear itself. As we see the incredibly destructive effect of fear on our society yet again, we must use everything BUT fear to combat it.

[Greyhound]

31. Hear, hear.

or should I say fear, fear. There are molesters behind every bush waiting to kidnap your children, your neighbors are commie Islamists building bombs in the basement, your kitchen appliances are out to get you, and the restaurant you ate at last night could well have given you AIDS...

[aquart]

2. A new generation that never stood on a breadline.

Never lost a job. Never owned only one pair of shoes.

They couldn't imagine a world in which America was so unprepared, it looked like we might lose the war in the Pacific.

They grew up pampered in a nation which honestly believed it could cure all, free all, do all. Though, in those moments, AIDS was beginning to destroy some of the best of our generation.

Personally, I blame it on way too many happy childhoods. If you've never been allowed to suffer, you don't believe in its reality.

[TahitiNut]

7. How about moving in the middle of the night because you couldn't pay the rent?

How about hand-me-downs ... from the neighbors? How about wives and daughters that took in ironing to help make ends meet? How about making "depression stew" (which I still eat because my parents' generation introduced it to me) composed of LOTS of potatoes, plenty of pepper, and a small amount of bologna ... letting it cook and cook until the flavor of that small piece of bologna was spread into all the potatoes? (Yum.) How about dropping out of school afte 10th grade and going to CCC Camps multiple times, using other guys' names? (Send that $25/mo back home.)

[Art_from_Ark]

22. A lot of things happened in the 40 years from the Depression

to Reagan, including, as you note, the emergence of a new generation (or two) that was, for the most part, a world away from the impoverished generation of the Depression. It is similar here in Japan, which was still essentially a 3rd world country before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics-- yet today, most Japanese have no memories of that era, they only know the prosperity and conveniences of the recent past.

[Gregorian]

4. A sense of scarcity.

We've been bred by the corporate advertisers to believe that there is endless supply of everything. There is a stark reality waiting just around the next corner. It's a healthy thing, to know the truth. We have abandoned the truth, for greed.

I'm speaking from experience. I know a number of people who lived through the depression. Without exception, I see them reusing paper towels. Just one of many things that exhibit what they learned. My father had to hunt for his next meal. Food is not taken for granted.

[Cleita]

5. Why did people vote for George Bush after Clinton?

Didn't they remember the twelve years of Reagan/Bush? It's like they got amnesia. I don't have an answer.

[freethought]

57. The "Likability Factor" helped Bush.

I don't know what was going on with Al Gore's campaign in 2000. Articles and the like said that he was being pulled in all directions by consultants and image managers. Let's put it this way, if Al Gore had campaigned as the man in "An Inconvenient Truth" rather than the cold/wooden person many people saw in the 2000 election, he would have won.
And remember, in 2000 and 2004 Bush won by narrow margins, election stealing not withstanding. With 2004, it was the "Fear Factor" as much the "Likability Factor" that put Bush back in the White House. That folksy, good ole boy, drinking buddy, image that Bush puts forth had a great deal of appeal to many people in this country. Only after nearly 6 years of truly f____d up policies, mismanagement, and false war that is turning into a bloodbath do people finally get it. The sad part is that it took 6 years and the damage is done. I don't think I will ever understand why this 30% or so still support him.

[capi888]

6. My Parents generation and Mine, did not forget..

Its our children born in the late 50's,60's & up, that didn't feel the pain. Nor did the stories of that time have them concerned as it was stories from Gramma and Grampa.They only felt the times of growth in the American Dream. I have children from the 60's and they thought they had it rough, as I instilled the work ethics, I learned.
As the 50's ended people were able to buy homes, save money, buy their children what they, themselves didn't have. It was an economy on the way up. Unions saved jobs, and corporate power was controlled. Our children went to college, or trade schools, to grow with growth of our economy, ever growing stronger.
They most certainly did not feel the hardships of the depression...I didn't either,as was born just after but sure heard the stories over and over from my parents. We forget and destiny repeats itself if we don't correct it. Now the pain is repeating itself...to remind everyone! History does repeat itself.
As people are facing losing everything, facing bankruptcy, no medical help, outrages prices for food, they will remember the stories of Grampa and Gramma...

[bobbolink]

8. I used to think a strong middleclass was very important.

Not a lot of folks during the depression considered themselves middleclass... they knew they were poor.

With a more and more affluent middleclass, and those who aspire to ever more "stuff", comes the illusion that one can do it alone, and doesn't need others.

When you think you don't need others, comes the "me, my mine" syndrome, with it's lack of concern for others, and the desire to make the New Deal go away.

Sometimes I think this nation would be better off to learn how to be poor again.

[hedgehog]

9. I don't buy that reasoning.

We need to be poor so we can appreciate how good it is to be middle -class? We need to decide if we need to work together to preserve a middle class, and if that is so, then we need to convince others that we depend on each other to stay in the middle class.

[bobbolink]

13. You misread what I wrote.

As long as your only interest is in "preserving the middleclass" and forgetting poor folk.... well, since I'm one of the latter, I'm not interested.

[hedgehog]

35. I guess I'm saying that you don't help poor folk by making more of them.

We need to find a way to communicate that we're all in this together.

[TahitiNut]

12. I think the "middle class" changed where they look for their income.

In the 30s and 40s, even, the "middle class" were the shop owners, doctors, lawyers, dentists, and other community professionals and businessmen who provided services and products to everyone else. When 20% of "every one else" lost their jobs, the middle class felt like collateral damage. It's not that there wasn't a "middle class" - it's that they sank/swam with everyone (except the robber barons). I think that's how it should be - I don't believe in throwing folks overboard.

Now, much of the middle class are victims of "Stockholm syndrome" - looking at "trickle down" economics and pleasing "the man." In effect, the middle class became affluent but then adopted the same dependency attitudes as many of the poorest of the poor. That's just not healthy in any economy, imho.

The absolute genius of the New Deal was priming the economic pump from the BOTTOM - finding ways to channel money to the poorest (even in the GI Bill) and then counting on those who offered products and services to compete for those dollars. What corporatism attempts to do is shortcut the bottom and gather the largesse of a wealthy nation directly - increasingly pushing the worker out and compensating labor for less and less of the value it creates - even though labor is STILL the most taxed and major source of that same "largesse."

[bobbolink]

14. Good point, and thanks for that tidbit about "priming the pump from the

BOTTOM"! Yes, very important distinction.

I was thinking more about the factors that caused people to consider each other more, rather than this current muddleclass attitude of "Fuck the poor"

I see it everywhere, including DU, and it makes me feel hopeless.

[TahitiNut]

18. You know ...

... anyone who uses Harriet Tubman for their avatar ... can't be all bad. :silly:

(One of my very favorite DUers has used that for forever.)

[bobbolink]

19. I could never live up to the example that Harriet Tubman set,

but my admiration for her gets stronger the longer I live.

Truly, I don't understand how she did all that she did. I wish I had her character!

Thanks for noticing, and :toast: to your fave DUer!

edited to p.s. Your Edmond Burke quote is great. :hi:

[raccoon]

34. Some reasons for the current "fuck the poor" attitude.

1. Too much affluence. If you've never had to share and/or do without, it's hard to sympathize (for some people).

2. Lack of sense of community. People used to live and die in the same town. Many, if not most, Americans now live in a different city than the one they grew up in. Or even if they're in the same city, they're probably in a different neighborhood.

Somebody said that two things which have helped destroy Americans' sense of community are air conditioning and garages. Because both these things isolate us. (And I'm not against either AC or garages. :-) )

3. Compassion fatigue. Feeling that after the Great Society programs, the War on Poverty, etc., didn't work because there is still so much poverty.

4. Feeling that "the pie" is more limited than it was in the '60's or so. There isn't enough to go around; by God, I want to get mine.

5. WAY too much emphasis on wealth in the media, including TV, movie, even novels. So much of the time protagonists of movies, etc., are wealthy.

In the soap operas in the days of my youth, many characters were definitely upper-middle class: doctors, lawyers, etc. Nowadays most of the characters are ultra-wealthy billionaires.

Anybody out there who can think of more reasons, please chime in.

This almost deserves its own thread. Maybe I'll start one.

[TahitiNut]

40. "It's the way things are."

Altogether too many people seem to regard their affluence as a bizarre combination of "I've earned it" and "it's the way things are." There's almost no appreciation or even consciousness that the injustices of the past are but a heartbeat away ... that the people who suffer under deprivation often work far harder and earn far more than they obtain within a system that's still hugely tilted in favor of a sperm lottery.

Consider ...
The vast majority of Americans alive today have no personal recollection of "duck and cover," a nation at war against REAL threats, making life plans that included the possibility for being drafted, sex without The Pill and pregnancy without legal and safe abortions, openly "restricted" clubs, pervasive segregation, growing up with the pervasive threat of life-threatening diseases like polio, and so on. I can't begin to count the number of under-40 people whose attitudes regarding these relatively recent hard-fought improvements to everyone's lives as "common sense" and "what took them so long" and "our ancestors sure were stupid to put up with that for so long."

[raccoon]

43. And what were they supposed to do? Curse God and die? LOL

""our ancestors sure were stupid to put up with that for so long."

"making life plans that included the possibility for being drafted, sex without The Pill and pregnancy without legal and safe abortions, "

That's true, and that's one thing that chapped my arse about the movie PLEASANTVILLE. The stupid protagonists encouraged the teens of the '50's to go ahead and have sex all they wanted. Well, DUH! Remember the shotgun weddings back then, the illegal abortions, the young girls "going to visit a relative" for a while, the children raised as their mother's "little brother" or "little sister?"

[TahitiNut]

45. Yup. It was a time of far more courage than many can imagine.

I'll cut 'Pleasantville' a lot of slack, though. Your point is well-taken but it also indicates the capacity of even an 'enlightened' audience to appreciate what it takes to throw one's life in front of the predations of an established way of thinking.

I'm reminded of how deeply we aspired to a more egalitarian society every time I watch "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" ... a movie I think cannot be really appreciated by people who've not lived through those times. To really appreciate that movie, one needs to understand the audience of that time. It's not that the movie portrayed the times in an historically accurate way ... it's that it was itself a cultural phenomenon.

[bobbolink]

52. A lot more economic darwinism that we want to admit!

:mad:

[susanna]

54. Add to number two

the loss of porches. Big front porches where you wave at your neighbors.

[EFerrari]

55. Puritans. They're still messing with this culture.

(Yes, I know they've been dead for a long time. lol)

[hedgehog]

36. Priming the pump from the bottom - that works for me!

[Deja Q]

15. And that's what they're doing.

The trouble is, how will the populace respond?

By helping each other?

Or by "me me me"ing all the way home?

I'd help. But I'd probably be killed by a "me me me"'er.

[bobbolink]

16. There are certainly some of us who are ready and willing to accept

your help.

Those of us who are too poor to let pride get in the way.

[magellan]

10. It's like telling your children not to do something you know from experience

...is bad. They don't have that experience. To them, what you're telling them is just a story -- they didn't have to live it and are sure they're different, it'll never happen to them. Inevitably they learn a lesson. But they have to learn it themselves, usually.

My dad was a kid during the Depression. When I was a kid he always used CASH to buy everything, including new cars. (We weren't rich, he just saved and saved and then did trade-ins.) When it came time for him to co-sign a loan for my first car, the dealer interrogated him up and down till I cried -- he had no credit history.

He now has a credit card but rarely uses it, only in necessity, and then it's paid off the following month. He never buys something on credit when he doesn't have the cash to back it up.

How do you pass that ethic on, especially when society nowadays is geared differently? They'd have you believe you're nothing without a traceable credit line. I almost fell for it, but I'm old enough to appreciate my dad's experience. We now have no credit cards and thumb our noses at whatever the credit companies think of us. Pity the fools who don't know better and live beyond their means.

[bobbolink]

20. Great response! If you have kids, do you have a guess at how

they will see things?

Really, I appreciated your words. Kinda parallels my own experience.

[magellan]

28. Sorry, I don't have kids

But I'd like to think if I did, I would teach them the value of money. That's cliche and I don't mean to sound like a penny pincher -- I'm not, and that isn't what my dad taught me. Being careful and wise with money doesn't mean not having fun. But it's true that you appreciate "things" more if you have to wait and work for them. And maybe in the waiting you decide it isn't so important to have after all! :)

[bobbolink]

50. Exactly--sometimes you just gotta have choklit, jist fer fun!! ^_^

When I was a kid, I was known for saving my allowance for a long time, then getting something really big (instead of blowing it every week on candy or movie), so I know what you mean about time changing what you want. :)

ONe thing I see about getting older is that when you're young, doing without can even be kinda fun. Getting inventive, and making things out of nothing, etc.

But, as I get older, and very poor, it just hurts.

Not because I can't have a damned Hummer :puke:, but not being able to have some nice glasses (inexpensive, but beyond my means), or have a dvd that gives me a lot of pleasure to watch, etc. Yanno, things that add beauty or real enjoyment in life.

Actually, one of the things that would be nice to have money for is the pleasure to giving to others at times. Jist for the fun of it. :hi:

[elocs]

11. I have a good friend who bleeds Republican who was born in Iowa in 1938.

His father worked for the railroad, very working class. He built their house out of whatever wood he could find. He hated FDR and passed that on to his son. Go figure?

[Selatius]

17. For the life of me, I can't understand why the New Deal has been forgotten.

FDR left for people the 2nd Bill of Rights.

To this day, 60 years later, it has been ignored by the Democratic leadership. Only a few Democrats derided as "far left" have been willing to champion the cause.

The War on Poverty is one war America didn't need to lose. If these ideas made FDR into a Social Democrat or even a Reformist Socialist, then maybe America should move toward the left for the sake of the poor.

Maybe America would benefit from more Social Democrats and Socialists in government.

[bobbolink]

21. Even the most "far left" can't seem to champion poverty issues.

THank you... your words mean a lot to me.

I feel completely left out.

[grasswire]

23. a member of a majority shouldn't feel "left out"...

...although I know that's difficult in today's conspicuous consumerism. I look at the magazines and the commercials and the shop windows and wonder who in hell is buying all this stuff. Who?

[bobbolink]

24. As a poor person, I'm part of no majority.

:(

[grasswire]

25. I disagree

If you think globally, you are part of a huge majority of poor humans, aren't you? And if you factor in the credit card debt that is making millions of Americans seem richer than they truly are, we might find that those in this country with no seeming riches are better off than those who are $50,000 in credit card debt and/or student loan debt. (I'm personally poor, too, btw. If I didn't share housing with other family members, I'd not be able to make it.)

That said, being poor or feeling poor seems to weigh especially hard in the winter, I know.

[bobbolink]

26. As in, "misery loves company"? sigh....

I'm surprised that people still say "You're not alone", when it's only numbers, and not a sense of community. Certainly, you must know that it's no comfort to know that others are suffering and dying.

It would be really great to feel like part of the majority, to have poverty issues taken as seriously and with as much support and concern as issues like the war, gay rights, etc.

I'm just the forgotten step-child, and it hurts.

And, knowing DU, someone will feel compelled to crap on that. :cry:

[kineneb]

51. more company

hi bobbolink- We, too, are members of the "lower classes". So you are not alone here. We are fortunate to own our home, otherwise we might not have enough money to buy food.

Living on $14K/yr is difficult, especially since Hubby has be taken to doctors all the time, so we must have a car. And his medical condition will not improve.

[bobbolink]

53. Please send my best wishes to your hubby! Living in my car,

my health is deteriorating, also.

:mad:

I wish you both well! :pals:

[hedgehog]

37. That's what I can't figure out.

Our family throws all the demographics out of whack because we have six kids. Even so, I look at our income and our costs and can't for the life of me figure out how anyone can buy a new house or even a new car.

[H2O Man]

27. Part of it was cultural.

In my father's family, one of the politicians they loved was Leland Olds. He had been a journalist, advocating for the railroad unions, before he went to work for the NY State Power Authority for Governor Franklin Roosevelt. He brought electricity to poor rural farmers, like my father's family's farm. He also worked with Mayor LaGuardia to supply power to the poor in NYCity.

In 1939, FDR brought lds to Washington to head the Federal Power Commission. After 5 years, when he was up for renomination, oil interests attacked him as a "socialist." FDR stuck with him. But in another 5 years, when oil attacked him again, Truman wasn't strong enough to protect him.

What was strange was that oil interests had LBJ stab Olds in the back. Yet years later, my father thought highly of LBJ as president. He recognized that LBJ had been vicious in the Olds incident, but he still thought he was the second FDR.

[hedgehog]

38. A new nugget about LBJ

Do you think that action foreshadowed his throwing over the War on Poverty to fight the war on Vietnam just to satisfy certain interests?

[H2O Man]

44. I think he knew

who he was working for. When they told him to stab Olds in the back, he did so without question. Later, he tried to pull a "it was just politics" routine to re-establish a friendship he had betrayed. But Olds was crushed. He was really one of the most decent, progressive men in American government in that century.

LBJ was not, despite his long career in both the House and Senate, a student of foreign policy. After Dallas, he was willing to follow the advice of the Pentagon. Though he actually held similar beliefs to Olds about helping the poor, he was willing to betray himself as well.

[hedgehog]

47. I find both LBJ and Nixon fascinating

They were such conflicted men.

[H2O Man]

49. I have always found both

fascinaying characters. I have a number of books on LBJ, and a number by and about Nixon. Thirty years ago, I would not have believed that I would prefer Nixon to any other president; it's amazing how this fellow Bush has so many of Nixon's worst qualities, but none of his strengths.

[Miss Chybil]

29. People are made different, so they think different.

For instance... Liberals, Moderates and Conservatives. Some people think war is the best way to solve problems. Others believe in diplomacy. Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Seiks, Atheists. Dog lovers. Cat lovers. Teachers. Learners. Cops and robbers. Horsemen. Sheepherders. People who like to bake. 100s of channels on TV. Bookstores with thousands of books on thousands of different subjects. Right-wing radio. Left-wing radio. Musicals. Horror films. Skirts. Slacks. White bread, or wheat. Joggers. Couch potatoes and writers. Comedians and tight-rope walkers.

There are a whole lot of us out here with a whole lot of ways of looking at things.

[nicknameless]

30. IMO, the "haves" were quite content with the Depression.

Maybe that's why the rethugs have been trying to recreate it.

1) A lot of the "haves" felt disdain for the "have nots" and got an ego boost from the separation of classes.
The last thing the wealthy want is a comfortable middle class with the money, leisure and political power to keep them in check.

2) There is a segment of Americans who are disinterested in anything beyond their immediate circumstances and resent taxes being withheld from their paychecks. Why put away money for their future, when they could be spending it now.

Reagan appealed to people like that -- people who argue for ending Social Security and switching to "private accounts".
They have no idea that the rethugs are just drooling over their Social Security money, and "private accounts" are a massive rip-off.

[Bridget Burke]

33. Studs Terkel's book on the Depression pointed that out....

One of his excellent oral histories, he interviewed Depression "survivors." Many told tales of hard times--but a few did quite well. They and their descendants still have money & power. So they can "twist" history--especially since there are fewer living witnesses to the Depression every year.

From The New Yorker: this was in an anthology at home, when I was a kid. It took me years to understand it.

[nicknameless]

48. That's so true. The further we get from the Depression, the more the facts get twisted.

Now we have scumbags, like Limbaugh, lying about FDR.
... And "Hoover wasn't so bad" kinds of comments.

Love that cartoon. Very accurate. Thanks for posting it.

[The Backlash Cometh]

32. To many Americans were suffering from the sickness called affluence.

Simply put, they no longer thought they needed the safety nets and they gave in to their greed. They went to the dark side.

[CrispyQ]

39. It's a sense of entitlement

that comes from never having experienced hard times or having to do without. You don't do your children any favors by providing them with everything they want.

Many people think that because they are better off than others, they are better than others. We value wealth & things, not people & human values. We have generations of younger people that have never gone without anything they want, much of it handed to them without anything in return. One is squatting in the White House right now.

There was a time before WWII that unions had made gains in wages, holidays, work environment, etc. & were beginning to bargain for a shorter work day - six hours. Then the war started, women went to work in factories & after the war, many women continued to work. People started to move to the suburbs, cars were more in demand, & maybe most instrumental, television became more common. Madison Avenue redefined wealth from 'leisure time' to 'material things.' They created the mythical Jones'& encouraged families to keep up. It has been a masterful deception that is still in play today. However, all things are finite & we cannot sustain this lifestyle without an influx of resources, which are quickly diminishing.

[TahitiNut]

41. Exactly. (See my #40 above.) GMTA.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2858374&mesg_id=2861440

[endarkenment]

42. you are talking about a 40 year spread of time.

People came out of the depression into WWII massively Democratic and progressive. By 1980, with lots of hard work confusing people about their self interest vs the interests of the elites, a slim majority voted in that creep Reagan. Since then we've been slugging it out over these same issues, although it is hardly a fair fight as the elites control the media and dominate the leadership of both de facto institutionalized political parties.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

46. because now poverty is seen as an individual flaw and not a societal responsibility.

[freethought]

56. My take on your post

My father, now passed away, was born in 1926, three years before the 29'market crash. He maintained the same attitude much the same attitudes as many who came out of the Great Depression. For example, earlier in life he would have never dreamed of using credit cards. Later he had one but rarely charged large sums against it, not more than $150. Any vehicle he ever owned was paid in cash and a bare bones type vehicle-standard transmission, no fuel injection, no AC, radio was AM only if the vehicle had one at all, if he could not fix it himself it was likely he would not buy it. He took loans on only two vehicles and those two cars were ones that dealerships were desperate to get rid off so they were often marked down substantially to move them. He worked construction for most of his adult life and was notorious for taking home lumber and materials the contractors he worked for were throwing away. He built our barn nearly entirely out of these second-hand materials. Only when age started to take away his ability to do things himself did he have others do it or pay others to do things. He was a great fan of FDR and Truman. People of my father's generation were never quite convinced that another Great Depression couldn't happen again so the mantras of "living within you means", "always pay cash, otherwise you don't need it", and "save, save, save" lived on.
Reagan was able to accomplish what he started, not entirely because of the WWII/Great Depression generation but because of the "Hippie" generation. Those that preached "peace, love, dope" during the 60s, largely students, the so-called "hippies", were soon out in the workforce and had to make a living and found out they had to do certain things like pay taxes, mortgages, and the like. Put that together with the stagflation of the 70s and you get a rather substantial amount of frustration.
Whether you like or hate him, Ronald Reagan had communication skills and likability factor that was nearly off the charts. Combine that with frustration with a stagnated economy and what some perceived as unfairly high taxes. Reagan's message of low taxes and "it's OK to get rich at all costs" turned the "hippies" into the "yuppies". The Yuppie or "ME" generation became probably the most self-centered, self-absorbed, self-gratifying
generation this nation has ever seen. A message of "one nation" and common good was replaced with "me, myself and I" and "don't trust anyone who makes under $100,000/year". And they haven't really changed either. They haven't had their Great Depression and as they retire and move out of the work force it is not likely they will ever learn the lessons of the Greatest Generation.
Maybe that's it. One generation can preach to another about its lessons and experiences but maybe such lessons need to be learned for themselves.
Got all that?

[Bridget Burke]

60. Hmmm....

I was a member of the "hippie" generation. But most of my friends & I thought that Reagan sucked. The political message I remember began "Ask not..."

Gainfully employed for some years now, I could never be considered a "Yuppie." (Still renting, for one thing.)

My Mom raised us on tales of the Depression. I'm sure my Father had some stories, too. But he was called back on active duty when I was 6 weeks old & killed in a military plane crash when I was 4.

Generalizing about Generations is silly. Am I supposed to consider all the Gen-X'ers whining slackers?

[freethought]

61. No. Gen X was never a generation of slackers.

I'm the very tip of the spear of that generation. Gen X turned out to be a very dynamic workforce, well educated and highly computer/technology literate. But what you don't hear out of Generation X any more is "Die Yuppie Scum". There are those in Gen X that are making the yuppie culture of the 80s look like bushwhackers. Gen X maybe cynical about a great deal of many issues but we're not slackers.

Whiny? That's one I would agree with. When things don't go as we would like Gen X can get pretty whiny.

You're correct in one respect that I am making a generalization on a certain generation. There are those who have remained faithful to the message that came out of the 60s. But one thing that cannot be denied was the shift in political landscape during the late 70s and most who grew up during the 60s we're caught up in it.

Most of the people I know who thought Reagan was great during his two terms now kind of look back on it and say to themselves "My God! What was I thinking?". I still know a few people who think Reagan could walk on water. Then again these are the type of people who need to take anti-depressant drugs if their neighbor or co-worker buys a car nicer than their own.

I am sorry to hear about your father. My own father passed last year. It is hard to imagine losing a parent at such a young age.

[unc70]

58. Interleaved populations with alternating tendencies

I started noticing 30-40 years ago that it seemed that the country had a "cycle" with a period a little over 30 years. In other words, more of "us" resemble our parents on the selfish/sharing scale than we resemble those 10 years older or younger.

I noticed that the 1950's looked a lot like the 1920's and the 1890's; the 1960's like the 1930's and 1900's. The third decade in the sequence seemed less defined. The children of one decade in the cycle form the bulk of the cycle corresponding to that of their parents.

I think of these as the "me" versus the "we" generations. The "me" focused on getting ahead, work, family, work hard and you will be rewarded, believe in the "Protestant work ethic", that they had worked hard and earned everything on their own, and that those with less had no one to blame but themselves for their hardships and were thus underserving of anything else. "Why share what I had to work so hard for with those too lazy to work, who just want to live off welfare." Take care of your own, follow the "rules", the Hell with the rest of you. Consumption.

The "we" seemed more of the "it's tough, but maybe together we can get through this tough spot" and "I was lucky to get a education and I'm grateful for that little student aid that made the difference in being able to stay in school" or "if I got sick and couldn't work, I don't think I could make it." The "we" wants a fair deal for everyone; the "me" think everyone already has a chance, they just have to get off their butts and quit expecting a handout from their betters.
Conservation.

It appears almost genetic, with the period of the cycle roughly a generation. with these distinct populations co-existing and alternating political and economic control. Obviously, this is an overly simplistic theory: not everyone has children at the same age, there are all types in each period with only their relative ratios varying, events can overwhelm underlying tendencies.

As I predicted, the 1980's reinforced my perceptions. Certainly a "me" decade. In the 1980's I also noticed that my liberal friends were waiting to have their children, increasing the mixing within these previous populations. I think that is a good thing.

Others have noticed this pattern and there are a few articles and books which describe it. Recent DNA mapping coupled with experiments hint that our tendencies are in our genes, including things like selfishness, shyness, and aggression.l

The third group in the cycle is hard to define. They almost get lost following the focus on the previous decades.

[loyalsister]

59. Because of what they think they got.........

They think they got a savings account when they got poverty insurance.

The glorification of FDR is a little overrated IMO. Elitism was alive and well.
The Works Project Agency was selective, and selected "better stock."
People who had never been poor were considered better than people who had been poor longer.
Classism was exploited in a very cynical way to pass the new deal. Instead of government jobs poorer and poorest got government assistance.
Reagan just took it a step further when he talked about "welfare moms."

During that time the Democrats could get people on board giving money to the wretched pitiable poor if it would keep them from begging on the street. And especially if it would reserve jobs for themselves.

Never underestimate self interest!

[bobbolink]

62. It's very interesting that Europeans, who, arguably, lived through

much worse, went a very different direction, and have societies now that take care of their people. They are much more insistent that none of their citizens "fall through the cracks".

Too bad it didn't catch on here.... :(