How is America different than when you were younger?

[Philosoraptor]

And what do you miss most about America? And what do you fear the most for the future of America?

One thing I've noticed is a real downturn in what kids retain from modern schools. And there are too many gadgets. Television is worse than ever, and what passes for popular music these days leaves me flat.

Americans seem more materialistic than ever to me, me me me, shop shop shop, fun fun fun, and people don't delve into intellectual pursuits as much.

What could we take from the past that we could apply to the future of America? Where is America headed? What do you miss the most about the America of your youth, and what do you fear the most about the America of the future?

[lynnertic]

1. The music stinks now! And everyone's yard is fenced in.

Solve those two problems and we're in good shape.

[Philosoraptor]

3. The Grammys are a ghastly joke.

Whatever happened to music anyway?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

14. undelete

actually, the music has sucked for a while.
political infighting is far worse. Ronald Brownstein's "The Second Civil War" is right on point.

Economically, we are witnessing the erosion, if not destruction, of the middle class, probably the most useful tool ever created by our little American poli-sci lab experiment.


BUT, having a set of huge dogs, good fences make for great neighbors.

[RuleOfNah]

25. Compression killed the waveform bar.

Engineers do that by applying dynamic range compression, which reduces the difference between the loudest and softest sounds in a song.

By maintaining constant intensity, the album flattens out the emotional peaks that usually stand out in a song. "You lose the power of the chorus, because it's not louder than the verses," Bendeth says. "You lose emotion."

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619/the_death_of_high_fidelity

[Philosoraptor]

35. Music designed by and for robots.

I'm not against hypnotic rhythms, or voodoo rhythms, but the techno beat and standard Britney beat appeal to the lowest common denominator.

And I can do without the 35 back up dancers and lip synching.

[lynnertic]

85. Wow, thanks for that.

Huey Louis said in an interview I saw that Record Companies aren't in the music business, but in the record sales business. Record companies aren't grooming artists anymore, so you don't get to see talent evolve. Also, he said that record companies are using focus groups and other short-sighted methods to sign artists.

I read too that cutting art education from school is a big reason American Music sucks - it's keeping the talent pool small.

Education is really dysfunctional now anyway... I'm weirded out by teenagers I see, spending so much energy to build resumes for college, in this weird kind of constant competition with their classmates, with the life goal of making gobs of money (which they will then spend living artists' lives vicariously through consumption).

We mostly listen to vinyl... thanks for the Rolling Stones article, I'm gonna send it to my husband...

[RuleOfNah]

103. Record Companies aren't in the music business

Art scares the norm.

I'm glad you liked the article.

I heard a funny line once, can't remember where. A club musician thought it would be a glamorous business, only to realize that he was really just selling beer for lousy pay (and that everyone still wanted his job).

Decent employers, that is what I miss most about America.

[lynnertic]

89. duh, dupe...

(self-delete, had an outage...)

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

31. And if you wanted a guitar so you could rock and roll

you earned the money for it yourself. And then you taught yourself the chords to the songs (my first was "Yesterday"-amazing how those chords were about all I needed to know to play most music back then!)

[AP]

40. Porches used to be on the front of houses, and now they're on the back.

[notadmblnd]

45. garages used to be in the back or side of houses too. Now they're in front

leaving very short driveways, so when people have company everyone has to park in the street, creating a huge pain in the ass for the rest of the residents. People also used to keep their dogs in their yards. Now they have to be taken for walks so they can shit all over the neighborhood.

[gauguin57]

70. I used to think fencing in one's yard was a bad thing, too ... until I realized that ....

... the biggest change I see in America since I was young is just how NOISY, SELF-CENTERED AND RUDE everyone has gotten.

If neighbors were respectful, like mine were when I was growing up in the '60s and '70s, I'd advocate no fencing. But now -- with the kind of neighbors I have now ... I can understand the instinct to want to wall oneself off.

NOISY! RUDE!!!!!!

It starts in the movie theater -- with people having cellphone conversations and talking out loud as if they're in their living rooms ... and it radiates out into the world at large.

[acmavm]

2. There was something called 'The American Dream'. Now all we have is

a national nightmare. Started with Raygun.

[Philosoraptor]

4. And it really was a dream.

I dream it all the time.

[acmavm]

6. No it wasn't. Great strides were made for a while. The standard for millions

of Americans improved dramatically (although not for all).

What you don't want to face is as 'bad' as it seemed, it was still better than anything anyone else had (our government and way of life). Now not even the lucky amongst us, those with college degrees and what seemed like a stable income are SOL.

[rug]

5. I take it there will be few Obama posters on this thread.

[Perry Logan]

7. The news is 100% right-wing propaganda.

[Philosoraptor]

8. I miss Walter Cronkite.

[Philosoraptor]

11. delete

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

34. Used to be, each large town had at least two newspapers

and you could bet your bottom dollar their editorial pages weren't cookie cutter copies of each other. And the television and radio stations were independently owned, and so, again, the local programming was unique.

[Perry Logan]

9. We have no President.

[Philosoraptor]

12. Its true, we've gone for years without an actual president, reagan then bush

[Cobalt Violet]

10. One income, one job.

One income could do a lot for the average family. It could buy a house, educate kids, send everyone to the doctor when sick, feed the family, and have some left over for vacations. Not anymore. That's just for the well off now.

[Philosoraptor]

13. I miss 25 cents a gallon gas.

Yes, now everyone has two or three jobs.

[ProudDad]

90. 25 cents for a gallon then

was the same buying power as about $4 per gallon now.

But is is VERY true that a family could live on the income of one fairly well placed "breadwinner".

It is also true that one person could live on minimum wage.

The already rich have stolen the majority of the "wealth" that has been created in the last 40 years...

[AP]

42. Now it's two jobs, which barely take care of the 10 credit cards you're supporting.

[raccoon]

58. True, but people expect a lot more now. Houses are lots bigger now.

Houses are air-conditioned now. People have lots more "stuff" now. People go to the doctor a lot more now. Medical/dental procedures are available now that didn't used to be.

Even so I know it's hard to make ends meet nowadays.

[newportdadde]

74. It can still be done but you don't have a huge house or new toys.

My wife and I do it and we are a family of six. I make a good income, not insane but enough for us to save some retirement, save some college and pay the bills. Its not easy.. not at all. We don't have new SUVs or a large house or a bathroom large enough to park a car in with a jet tub.

I don't even have a flat screen HDTV! OMG...

Instead we share one sink and our master bath has only a shower, all the fixtures are from the 70s when the house was built. We also still have the 70s cabinets and dark Walnut molding in the kitchen. Our appliances are white now though.. lol

No doubt most couples our age(31) would burst into flames upon entering this uncool house. *GASP* how could they possibly entertain the friends here?

We did all of that for a reason. If all holds together *crosses fingers* the house will be paid off in 3 years allowing us to update it, save for retirement and hopefully put all 4 of our sons through college debt free.

Too many people my age want it all RIGHT NOW.

[MADem]

15. Everything is different. Tee Vee is the family entertainment medium,

no one listens to the radio anymore unless they pay for digital service. Computers are everywhere, no one has a typewriter any more.

Children do not take music, art, or civics in many schools. They don't do much phys ed either. EVERYONE has cars. There are no one car families anymore, and some people have several cars.

People read less. They have more THINGS. One good thing--people don't feel obligated to go to church every week if they don't feel like it.

The food is full of shit now--it was plainer, but healthier, before the influx of hideous chemical pesticides. Of course, it was smaller and a bit uglier, too--but you didn't care.

I think America will be OK, though--if we can get a hold of the global warming mess...

[Echo In Light]

16. That many more yrs of corporate propaganda poison "values" guiding the public mind

As a teenager in the 80s I became a musician, quit school, was strictly into underground music/literature/art because the top 40 this or that of the culture sucked big time then too.

What's different now is the degree of superficiality in so many aspects of the corporate culture: gadgets/techno toys for the upper class became synonymous status symbols for the middle class and vast working poor, blurring real class distinctions. Hell, a college education became a routine status symbol for that matter, largely meaningless aside from further indoctrinating people into the corporate mindset which begins at birth. The corporate culture enshrouds the social climate like a man-made weather system that acclimatizes the collective consciousness in ways that benefit The Few over The Many. That was occurring in the 80s also, but not to the extent it does now.

Another major social shift regards gender roles, again, in keeping with the corporate/cultural instruction. Two primary factors involved: Empty-V Hip Hop culture, and females gaining unprecedented access to hardcore pornography online.

In part, both of these forms of entertainment, in my estimation, have led to the glorification of machismo, chauvinism, superficiality, greed, and an overall posturing/affectation that has mass acceptance of being real when it's as phony as a three dollar bill. One could expound at length on these matters, but to sum up, many forms of sexism, chauvinism, glorified exploitation and misogyny are not, due to cultural familiarity and mass denial {brainwashing}, perceived for what they actually are, mainly because so few seem to have any intellectual curiosity as to what's actually behind all of this bought and paid for, jive mass marketing bullshit that people take their behavioral cues from.

[Hardrada]

117. I was thinking about that the other day.

How pervasive corporate culture is. I am luckily independent of that, being self-employed but I notice so many young people now are graduating in either Tech or Biz and not getting much by way of the Humanities along the way and i think this shows in our culture. On the other hand, people didn't read much of importance when I was a kid and classical music is now and was then something cultivated by the educated (meaning private/church school educated) wealthier classes. The performance arts have also been easily co-opted by corporate culture something like how Wagner was incorporated into National Socialism!

[Corgigal]

17. in the late 70's

You could go to college and not become in debt for 40 years. I have a 17 year old daughter who will be attending college next year, I hope we find a way to get those funds together. College pricing has become insane.

[Echo In Light]

19. Tell her to go out and live awhile, think about the college racket later

My two cents...

[lynnertic]

91. I don't know, once I transitioned from study to work

I lost all my math and my priorities changed. Took 15+ years for me to think about wanting to study something formally again.

There's no money in a high school diploma. Even if you drop out of college to start a company (Founders of Yahoo & Microsoft, Tiger Woods, and all our other modern business heroes) you are still in college enough to get connections and a different mindset...

[Perry Logan]

18. We are in a state of civil war.

Stealing an election is not a political act. It is an act of war.

[marions ghost]

60. yep

;(

[nebenaube]

20. simple...

Compare how you felt during the summer of '76 to now...

[ixion]

21. the social fabric is now more miltaristic and fascist...and less human

there are many things you could do as a kid that may have gotten you a scolding, but would not have landed you in jail. Also, there was more humanity left in society. I think we've lost much of our humanity over the past couple decades.

[Philosoraptor]

22. Torturing a prisoner of war to death wasn't considered nice back then.

And the world liked us.

[Thothmes]

123. You mus not have heard

about what we would do to VC or NVA prisoners to get information out of them.

[Echo In Light]

28. Corporatism = less humane. Aside from aggression, emotions are considered "weak"

Why? Because they're perceived as an annoyance which hinders the aims of the Corporate Way.

[raccoon]

65. While I agree with you, there's a flip side of that.

When I was growing up ('50's, '60's), parents could get away with physically and or sexually abusing kids for years. Spousal abuse was common. People figured what went on within a family was their own business.

[OneGrassRoot]

23. Too much noise, too much distraction...

too much everything detrimental to thinking for one's self.

I miss when stations signed off at night and you had the fuzzy screen to put you to sleep. Now, you can surf forever and be surrounded by 24/7 noise. Hard to have a quiet mind these days.

(On the flip side, having 24-hour cable is a blessing when you have a fussy infant who can't sleep at night...lol).

[cynatnite]

24. Actually, in a lot of ways it's better now than what it was when I was a kid...

I'm not living in an alcoholic home anymore.

My kids are getting a far better and more honest education than I ever did.

My kids are getting more out of their education than I got.

We've got a larger selection to pick from on TV rather than the typical five or six TV stations which I totally hated.

We know more now than we did then. It doesn't always necessarily mean we'll make better decisions, but in a lot of ways we do.

What I miss about my youth...the simplicity of life which is always how it seems when we're young.

My 23 year old daughter thinks life was simpler when she was in grade school.

[Philosoraptor]

26. 'Everything was lousy when I was a kid, & weeeeee LIKED IT'!

the greatest invention ever is the t.v. remote control, ask anyone who had to go to the drudgery and exhausting toil of getting up from the couch and walking across the room turn it down or to change one of 5 channels......(shudder)

[raccoon]

67. Especially at night, when you had the sound turned low, and the commercials would come blasting

out at you.

[Philosoraptor]

27. Things went south when folks started being born again & voting for reagan.

[onenote]

77. didn't Jimmy Carter describe himself as "born again"?

[earth mom]

119. Except Jimmy really believed in God and Reagan & his followers only believed in MONEY. nt

.

[Philosoraptor]

29. Everybody wasn't on crack or meth.

There were virtually no drugs whatsoever in the high school I went to in the 60's, we'd heard about it, but never saw it.

And everybody wasn't on crack back then, those were the good ol days.

[kineneb]

83. unless you were in the San Joaquin valley

the Hells Angels were making meth there in the 1960s... I think 1970 marked the beginning of the real "drug culture"...so many vets with drug addictions from 'Nam

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

30. Thrift was a virtue, and honor was more important than wealth

People who "lived beyond their means" and did shady things to get money were looked down upon. A poor man who was honest and put in a hard day's work and then went and helped his elderly neighbor down the street was considered a hero. The folks who saved their pennies and made do with things were considered smart. I still recall how proud I was of the clothes my grandmother sewed me (she made all my dresses and even my coats). I thought it neat that she would use the fabric from flour sacks to make my dresses. And I got my "allowance" by going around and picking up Coke bottles and returning them to the store for the deposit.

Another thing was that stuff was built to last. Milk came in bottles and was delivered to your door in a horse-drawn wagon (Urbana Pure Milk Company kept the horses until the 1960s, not that long ago). A Radio Flyer Wagon or a Schwinn bicycle lasted your entire childhood without breaking. You took your shoes into the repair shop and they did a great job fixing them. Only reason you got new shoes was because you grew. Your parents and grandparents wore the same shoes for years.

[Echo In Light]

33. "Thrift" ...now the wealthy suburbanites shop at Goodwill..cuz it's COOL

[Philosoraptor]

37. Chinese slaves didn't make all our stuff.

And the food didn't kill you.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

41. Nope, what Grandma didn't make

the folks in other parts of the US made the clothes and shoes. And they were generally paid good wages and had good working conditions. Remember looking for the UNION label on your clothes? I do.

[lynnertic]

104. What time period are you talking about? I think you're mistaken.

Because before "chinese slaves" there were lots of other poor people who were exploited to produce goods for the better off. Pick a time and I'll show you the slaves.

Also, pick a time and I'll find food that killed you... read any Updike lately?

[Thothmes]

124. All the junk was made in Japan at the time

[spinbaby]

32. Back then we were the good guys

"Truth, justice, and the American way" wasn't just something Superman said in the comics, it was the way we felt about our country.

[Echo In Light]

36. Have to disagree with you on that. Vietnam, East Timor, the terrorism of Reagan/Bush, etc

[spinbaby]

87. Before then

I'm pretty old.

[ProudDad]

94. Cuba, Phillipines

Puerto Rico, Guatemala, United Fruit, Nicaragua (the first invasion not the latest)...

Before that;

The Native Americans...

USAmerika has ALWAYS been about Empire and conquest at the expense of others for the benefit of the well placed few...

[spinbaby]

97. Perhaps

But we didn't hear about it. When I was a kid, we had heroic John Wayne types taking on the Nazis. Later, the Communists.

[ProudDad]

101. True, too true.

See my post down thread for a comment on our ignorance.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2740677&mesg_id=2742966

[Snarkturian Clone]

38. Where do I begin?

Music sucks ass now and old bands have been glorified to the point of absurdity (the beatles).

Kids did better in school because they were grouped by ability level-- but now it's all about inclusion- so the kids with high intelligence have to have instructional time stolen by lesser-achieving kids (sounds evil I know). On a sad note, kids with physical disabilities didn't have as much access to schools.

The cities were hell.. it was assumed that if you went into any city, you would be robbed or raped or murdered. If anyone told me I would be living in a city when I grew up, it was assumed I fucked up somewhere.

Computers sucked monkey butt and we all thought that they were AWESOME!!! BBS's were fun and make the flamewars here look like a dinner party.

You're right, there are gadgets everywhere! It's too much. Kids bring phones and PSP's to school.

People were free. They could smoke in a lot of places and non-smokers like myself knew how to adapt to the situation without whining about it.

There was just enough TV. There were like 5 shows you watched and that was the most you could watch. Nowadays it's gone haywire.

Video tapes were great. Sure the picture was lousy and the tape fell apart, but they were cheap as hell and things you recorded from TV were a lot more mobile than today.

McDonalds still used real beef tallow to fry their french fries and you could smell it from 30 ft. away from the franchise building.

MTV played music or talked about music most of the time, and when they started The Real World, the people in it were semi-normal.

The Simpsons was still funny.

You knew one person who used a MAC and you laughed at them.

You could board a plane. You could accompany your friend to the gate.

A magazine had information you couldn't find anywhere else. Nintendo Power anyone?

The library was the first and only place you could research something. If you had a good library.

You knew people who did not have a computer. (my parents still don't have one)

Sci-fi movies didn't use CGI. They just looked more real somehow. Loved those futuristic movies from the 80's. I used to call it the 80's twisted evil future.

I'm sure there's more I can think of but this post is long and disjointed enough.

[AP]

39. Social mobility meant working class people having kids going to college, making more many than their

parents, and opening up options for themselves and their kids, all thanks to people being better rewarded for their labors, no matter what kind of job you had.

Today social mobility doesn't exist. However, people create the illusion of upward social mobility through consumption that is supported by heavy indebtedness, which will probably ultimately cause people in heavy credit card and mortgage debt to fall back to a rung on the ladder that is even lower than where their grandparents started off.

[midlife_mo_Jo]

57. Social mobility existed for the last generation through the two-income family

but unless we move to polygamy, there's no one else to bring in a paycheck. :(

[mcscajun]

43. I miss Real News, with Real Journalists. The Golden Age of TV

when writing was at an incredible high. Yes, there was lowbrow entertainment, but there were also great anthology shows, with good writers & lots of good actors, and important literary works were staged for TV. American Idol and other far more vicious reality TV shows contribute to a dumbing down and coarsening of sensibilities that wears down civility, compassion, and values that pull us together, not tear us apart.

Children could entertain themselves without TV or gadgets, and actually spent time going OUTSIDE to play; not organized sports, not structured playdates, just random play, socializing with anyone and everyone, not just carefully selected samelings from their age group. Children had time to indulge their imaginations just watching clouds, counting cars, looking up at airplanes.

Nearly everything closed on Sundays; it's really nice to have one day that's SET up for Downtime for everyone. Nothing religious about this required, just that there's one day in the week that you don't have to go, you don't have to do, you don't have to shop. The only areas where this happens anymore are wealthy areas hanging onto antiquated Blue Laws so the cars aren't in their neighborhoods one day a week. Nice for them, eh?

Cost of Living increases in regular wages. There's an antique item that disappeared for most a couple of decades ago; now, you have to be on the treadmill of constant improvement and promotion JUST to keep pace, never mind getting ahead.

Consumer items manufactured in the US that actually worked and lasted.

What I fear most? Continued social fragmentation and economic decline, pitting us against each other (I see it already in the generations behind me; yes, I'm a Boomer and we're under attack), continuing erosion of freedoms, and generations behind growing up accepting this as Normal, as what America is and always has been. My America, and that of those my age and older, wasn't some rosy image we look back on as "the good old days" without blemish. We know it wasn't perfect, we know just what the problems were (racism, sexism, and yes, more) but still, we know the America we've got right now isn't right, and unless something radical happens, it's not getting any better any time soon.

[Echo In Light]

47. While I agree w/a lot of that, "Real" news has never existed w/any consistency

And the medium of television was at once seized upon as a tool of mass manipulation ... it's just that not as many sixty yrs ago understood how or why there was a want/need for such manipulation because they blindly/unquestioningly believed in authority and its rigged systems.

[raccoon]

71. I have to wonder if this is deliberate,

"other far more vicious reality TV shows contribute to a dumbing down and coarsening of sensibilities that wears down civility, compassion, and values that pull us together, not tear us apart."

People who are apart make better consumers.

[ProudDad]

95. See my post #88 (n/t)

[mmonk]

44. It's more quiet now.

I grew up through political assassinations, riots, the Vietnam War, etc. But at least we were progressing. Now, everybody just sits on their ass while government officials stuff copies of the constitution into a shredder.

[Vinca]

46. Small towns are falling by the wayside. The manufacturing plants

they were built around are gone and so are the people. The population is more transient because of the lack of permanent jobs and people don't connect the way they used to. I remember when you walked down the street and knew almost everyone's name. Now I can go an entire day and not recognize anyone. Walmart has decimated some small towns. Instead of small shops there are boarded buildings. Kids don't play outside anymore - unless it's "scheduled." Many are confined to their houses because both parents work and they have to care for themselves. There seems to be an overall diminishing of anything intellectual and it starts at an early age when kids are plunked in front of the television/babysitter. I think I could write a book on this topic.

[nonconformist]

48. People could MAKE IT then.

Yes, even us lowly blue-collar folks. Most people could get a decent job with benefits and a pension, and have that job until they retired.

That seems like a total pipe-dream now.

[bdamomma]

49. I miss privacy and freedom.

[Coexist]

50. young women are too quick to bitch about the view, without caring

about the giants upon whose shoulders they stand.

[MadHound]

51. Oh many things,

Opportunities lost, choices discarded, actions not taken.

Having grown up in the sixties and seventies I took thinks like privacy and freedom for granted, along with relatively clean air and water, and so much more.

But even when I was in jr. high there were thunderclouds on the horizon. The oil shocks of the seventies were harbingers for what would happen if we didn't do something. Sadly, we didn't do a damn thing. I remember back in '79 we were arguing energy policy that year. One of the more interesting facts that stuck in my head from those debates was that if we had started converting over to wind and solar those two energy sources would be supplying half our energy needs by 2000. Yet here we are in '08 and wind and solar are supplying what, one-three percent of our energy needs while our country is still strapped to the oil barrel.

I remember that in the seventies cameras were a rarity, in fact I only saw cameras in banks and businesses that dealt with lots of money. As they started their insidious spread throughout our society, people my age and older raised and alarm and perhaps a bit more. But all to no avail, and people became increasingly desensitized to them. They also became more desensitized to all sorts of intrusive devices and practices meant to take away peoples' privacy in favor of some buzzword, "fighting crime", "fighting terrorism", or no buzzword at all. After all, we've had a whole generation and part of another raised with this shit as part of their daily lives and it seems as though they've come to love big brother. Since moving to the country I've regained my sense of freedom since I no longer feel as though I have some anonymous somebody watching me, literally from the time I step outside my door.

I remember many things, including a sense of hope and optimism, that the battles fought in the sixties would lead to gains in the seventies and beyond. Yet sadly the boomer generation who fought for change in the sixties turned inward during the seventies, and became Reagan Democrats during the eighties, and all was lost. Sure, there were and are a few members of that generation who've continued to fight the good fight, but all too few, not enough to make a real difference.

Thus it was during the latter eighties that I started predicting that our country would collapse into either a civil war, a fascist regime or revolution within fifty years. Looking around me now, and looking ahead, I think that I was fairly spot on, give or take ten years. And sadly, I think that it will be a fascist regime that we face. The signs are all around us, and the people really don't care.

So at this point I can do nothing really but prepare for the worst, and hope that when the shit hits the fan I can hang on, and perhaps pass some little good on to the future. But I think that we're going to have to go through a long period of darkness before we see the light again, if we ever do.

[Annces]

52. I miss the feeling that

having a good time on the weekend was all that was really required to live a good life.

[dysfunctional press]

53. the televisions are WAAAY bigger...with LOTS more choices.

and i like that.

[leftofthedial]

54. The rise of corporatism in the service of the oligarchy under the guise of "conservatism"

has destroyed education, family bonding, imagination, community, infrastructure and the intrinsic worth of the individual. All have been replaced by shallow materialism and consumerism.

[Stinky The Clown]

55. Hatred and mistrust

[midlife_mo_Jo]

56. Good music. Motown. Great rock.

Kids roaming around and playing with friends in Small Town, USA.

Civility amongst strangers.

Knowing all your neighbors - even the ones you don't particularly like. :)

Hope in the future.

Less mobile society - I grew up with all my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. within a few miles of my house. My kids don't have that.

LESS materialism!

Grandmas who liked to cook and bake instead of play tennis, and grandpas who took the kids fishing instead of playing video games with them. (Ok, ok, that was just supposed to be funny, but there's still some wistful truth in there "for me." I have great memories of doing that stuff with my grandparents.)

[onenote]

59. here are some things I DON'T miss about the America of my youth:

Legalized racial segregation; women largely excluded from professional life; abortions illegal; the draft; eighteen year olds eligible for the military, but ineligble to vote; restricted clubs that barred Jews, women and/or african-americans; only three networks to choose among for televised news and prime time entertainment; virtually unrestricted pollution of the air and the water; cigarette smoke everywhere; no Internet as a source of information and vehicle for individuals to make connections; form communities; smallpox; polio.

I'm not trying to downplay the problems we have today that we didn't have in the past. We have conquered some diseases, but others, particularly AIDS, have risen up. There have been marked improvements in the quality of the air and water in some cities, but overall we have the problem of global climate change. There is no draft, but there still is war. Legalized segregation has ended, but racial divisions persist. Women have a sizable presence in the professional world, but still face unequal treatment in many respects.

But just as always has been the case, things are neither all bad nor all good when compared to the past.

[theboss]

61. Everyone I know has a job

In Pittsburgh in 1982, that was not really the case.

Also, tv is better. Has anyone watched a re-run of Alice recently? That's what we watched in 1982. That and Dukes of Hazzard. Trust me: American Idol is Shakespeare compared to that garbage.

What else? Baseball stadiums are nicer.

[ordinaryaveragegirl]

62. I miss neighbors acting like neighbors.

Where I grew up, we all knew each other's names, played outside with the neighborhood kids, had block parties, and said hello to each other with a smile. People respected each other, even if they didn't always agree. People would go for a walk or sit outside in the evening after dinner. No cell phones, no Internet, and very few people had cable. Lots of cops, nurses, realtors, truck drivers, and people who worked at the GM plant. Typical Midwest working/middle-class neighborhood.

Where I live now, people wave once in a while, and cut each other off at intersections. A lot of the kids are inside after school, presumably playing video games or something. The houses are bigger, the cars are fancier, and the egos are a lot larger. People are too busy to bother with other people. We don't respect each other like we used to. People today are too worried about bettering other people, instead of bettering themselves. How sad.

I miss the old days.

[MedleyMisty]

63. Back in my day

We walked twenty miles barefoot in the snow to get to school, and we liked it and were grateful for it! Damn kids today, with their "rock" music. It's the devil's music, I tell ya! Hey kids, get off my lawn!

[Javaman]

120. pfft! only 20 miles? I had to walk 50 miles up hill both ways in blinding

snowstorms on lava. Don't ask me to explain, I'm just telling you like it was!!

The only "rock" music we had was when we would throw rocks at each other for food!!! and when one hit you on the head, well that was music to us!!! Damn it!!! and we liked it!!!

[ThomWV]

64. Segregation is different now, education is much different, transportation is much better now

Those are the things most noticeable. There are no more White and Colored drinking fountains, no more No Blacks policies at stores and places to eat. The schools are integrated now too, and of course they weren't when I was young.

Education used to be very much more personal in that teacher's had a lot more control as to what was going on in their classrooms. English teachers used to chose the books their students would read and you were tested to what was taught, not to a national standard. After Sputnik (1957) there was much more emphasis on the sciences, but from what I see that is long gone.

Transportation is so much better now than it was in the past. Cars were death traps way into the 80's but you can not imagine how bad they were in the 50's and 60's. It was slaughter on the highways. Oh, and highways were not the same thing then that they are now. There were no Interstates. I lived in DC when there was no Beltway - imagine that, and it was not as long ago as you might imagine.

Police are different too. I can not count the ways but I can say they are no where near as brutal now as they were in the past. It used to be that just about any arrest meant you were in for a good beating. That went away after the big Viet Nam protests in the 70's. Rodney King's incident was a commonplace sort of thing decades before it was caught on camera and it was omnipresent.

[ProudDad]

96. Sorry -- now let's do it without the rose colored glasses

The schools have been re-segregated thanks to capitalist economics... But now the blacks and browns can go to prison instead of black/brown colleges.

Education has REALLY gone downhill. It's not education any more it's vocational training.

Transportation today is KILLING US. Between gridlock and global warming the huge flaws in the transportation system are becoming apparent.

I guess you don't live where the cops are just as brutal as ever. They don't do it in public during the day as much any more, they've become more cunning.

The Rodney King incident is Daily Standard Operating Procedure and still VERY omnipresent if you're black or brown or live in the hood...

Their prime directive is STILL to protect the rich, mostly white people of Power and Importance from the masses.

The pigs also know that if they can frame your ass into prison the brutality of the prison-industrial complex will torture your ass much more effectively than they ever could in the back rooms at the precinct house.

[lynnertic]

105. Sad and all too true.

[onenote]

108. not all so true. at least with regard to "re-segregation"

Race relations in this country are still not anywhere near to what they should be, but anyone who thinks that they aren't better than they were in the 50s and early 60s is living in a fantasy world. As for the claim that colleges have "re-segregated" -- well, that's demonstrably untrue:

http://www.jbhe.com/features/57_freshmen.html

[lynnertic]

126. didn't think the reference to schools was college but k-12

which is resegregating along socioeconomic lines (very closely aligned to racial lines)

HOWEVER I show below how outlawing affirmative action in college admissions lowers minority representation in the UC system:

http://www.ucop.edu/sas/publish/aa_final2.pdf

Undergraduate Access to the University of California
After the Elimination of Race-Conscious Policies
...
The experience of the University of California over the past seven years indicates that in a highly selective institution, implementing race-neutral policies leads to a substantial decline in the proportion of entering students who are African American, American Indian, and Latino. At UC, these declines have been partially mitigated by programs designed to increase enrollments of students from low-income families, those with little family experience with higher education, and those who attend schools that traditionally do not send large numbers of students on to four year institutions. Increases in the numbers of underrepresented3 minority students graduating from California high schools, combined with substantial expansion of enrollment capacity at several UC campuses, have led to overall increases for some groups within the University of California as a whole. However, underrepresented students remain a substantially smaller proportion of those admitted to and enrolled at the University’s most selective campuses—UC Berkeley and UCLA—than they were before the elimination of race-conscious policies. Additionally, the gap between the percentage of underrepresented minority students graduating from California high schools and the percentage enrolling at the University of California has widened.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4081/is_200611/ai_n17189447

In 1996, California residents votcil for Proposition 209, ending race- and gender-based affirmative action programs in public education, employment and contracting in the state. But a decade after the controversial legislation, the dissension has not eased at all.

Ten years later, what has been the effect of Prop. 209?
...

So far, the legislation has had a major impact on the state's system of higher education. According to a June 2006 report by the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American studies at UCLA, Blacks make up only 2 percent of all students admitted this fall to UCLA. There are only 210 African Americans in the school's freshman class of 10,487 students. In 1995, a year before Prop. 209 was passed, 269 Black students registered for classes.

[ThomWV]

129. No its not

You can not compare segregation in the 50s and 60s to now and then come back and not do the same with colleges - there were one hell of a lot fewer black persons in college back then compared to now - hell there are more black people in High School now then there were back then. There is just no comparison.

Also, even though there are 5x the number of cars on the roads today you will find that no more people die on our roads today then did in any year in the 50s or 60s. The number has held right around 500 all along. It is interesting to note though that the prediction for deaths would actually be national news preceding holidays back then - now its comparatively so low no one mentions it.

As for the quality of the schools, well, that one is a no brainier. Children today are dolts. They can not read, they can not write, they apparently can not think. A few are good at their cyphers. I personally blame that on television but I have no real idea why it is true.

[ThomWV]

128. You are both wrong

[closeupready]

66. I think more people are self-centered and shamelessly greedy.

Used to be that people believed in sharing. Now, it's all "what's in it for me".

[ThomWV]

68. I'd agree with the "shamelessly greedy" part. It acutally used to be shameful to be greedy

No kidding, it was something that was not looked on as a good thing to see a greedy person.

[closeupready]

75. Exactly. Now, we have failing businesses giving exec.s multi-million dollar bonuses even as layoffs

of the rank and file take place. This is part of why the middle class has been decimated. It's sort of a wealth transfer, but a transfer which, unlike social security, is harmful to society.

[raccoon]

69. Unintended pregnancies could change young people's lives FOREVER.

Abortion was illegal.

If a young woman got "in trouble" (pregnant and wasn't married), all her options were bleak. Either a shotgun wedding, or she went to visit a relative in another city (that was the official version), had the child and gave it up for adoption. If she'd kept it she and the child would be stigmatized forever.

Some things about the time I grew up in were good, some weren't. It's easy to look back at the past through rose-colored glasses, and not see the "bad" things.

[Papagoose]

72. When I was a child

I believed that anyone could grow up to be President.

[The Straight Story]

73. We had more freedoms and less of the govt watching us (you could even smoke in bars)

:)

[onenote]

76. depends on who you were and when you're talking about

African Americans didn't have more freedoms when I was younger. And women didn't have the right to choose. And Jews, women, and African Americans didn't have the freedom to belong to certain clubs. And arrestees didn't have the freedom to remain silent. And the government still spied on us, particularly if you were part of the civil right movement or the anti-war movement.

[The Straight Story]

86. Not entirely true to my point

If we use white males as the gauge and their freedoms at the time, then the idea for civil rights was to bring everyone along to enjoy those same rights. But if we remove some rights then there is less rights for all to fight for.

[blondeatlast]

78. I lived in a small town with it's own economy. Now there's a Wal-Mart there

and the downtown has crumbled. It's a tragedy--and I hope small towns can learn from the mistakes Coolidge, Arizona made, please. :cry:

[Arugula Latte]

79. The Rightwing PsychoChristians are much more vocal and visible now.

I liked it better when they were considered to be just plain "Nuts" instead of "The Republican Base."

They have WAY too much say in the way this country is run.

[closeupready]

80. Another change is the weather. Summer's are definitely warmer, as are winters.

That is not just my imagination. I've notice the change since at least 1987.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

81. There were 1/2 as many people in the USA when I was born.

Makes quite a difference in everything.

[Jed Dilligan]

82. I'm only 33 but here goes

Most of the positive change I've seen has come in the areas of race and gender, not politically, but socially. I remember a time when a room full of white people was a room full of racists (tough situation for someone who "passes") and every woman I met I could assume she had been raped at some point. That was the early nineties. Now racism is much less acceptable, and the genders seem more equal. I've even noticed the double standard dropping away for young people--often, nowadays, it's the girl trying to get the boy to have sex.

Negative changes are obvious, they are just the logical playing-out of the wrong turns made in the Reagan era. As the people get better, the state gets worse. The more tolerant we are in our lives, the more brutal our military and police state become.

[kineneb]

84. sense of hope for the future

there was a sense that the future would be better, that science was good, that perhaps we could go beyond the moon to other planets...

The sense of hope has died- it was mortally wounded with JFK's assassination, and died with Regan.

the Depressed States of America

[ProudDad]

88. Thanks to 30+ years of the right-wing propoganda

USAmerika is a paranoid collection of allegedly self-sufficient "individuals" who live in constant fear of one another.

the republicans and libertarians embody that sick message (watch out for Ron Paul, folks!).

I miss the blissful ignorance of the 50s and early 60s when the concepts co-opted from the Socialists by the New Deal & FDR of a society of folks all in this together (as big a lie as that was) were partially applied in law and custom.

But I wouldn't want it back...

I miss the vibrant, mindless belief of the mid-60s (until Martin and Bobby were murdered) that we could change the world and make it a peaceful place where all could live and thrive.

It would be nice to have that level of optimism again, as ignorant of the actual source of the evil it was...



Old Chinese Curse: May you live in interesting times...

[begin_within]

92. People knew their neighbors well and were good friends with all the neighbors.

We used to have block parties on our street - everyone was friends with everyone else. Now, even on that same street I grew up on, many people don't even know each other. We have become a nation of strangers.

[LanternWaste]

93. Game-stations and I-pods replacing religion and television

Game-stations and I-pods replacing religion and television as the neo-opiate of the masses.

Cynicism as both a fashion/lifestyle trend and as a marketing gimmick most of us have bought into.

Family night. Out of every person I know, work with, am acquainted with or even talk to-- only one of those individuals has an actual, defined, and scheduled night he spends with his family and only with his family.

That's the biggest thing I miss from the period when I lived in Mexico-- seems as though the entire culture was family oriented as opposed to ours which tells us to get away from our families as soon as possible... sigh

[Justpat]

98. The word coup only applied to horrible, third world dictatorships.

Now it applies to us.

Vote fraud only applied to horrible, third world dictatorships.
Now it applies to us.

That is just off the top of my head. Give me a minute. I'll think of some more
when I stop crying..

[NewJeffCT]

99. A whole host of things - I was born in 1966

I was born in Dec of '66 and graduated high school in June of 1985.

Back then, we never had to pay for school books, sports uniforms or activities. Yes, we had fundraisers, but those were more like savings for future class reunions and for "special" activities like dances. And, I grew up in a blue collar middle class suburb.

I never had much in the way of school homework until I was in 7th or 8th grade, and it didn't really pick up until high school. My daughter now gets weekly homework in kindergarten, which I'm told is not uncommon.

High school sex was not uncommon, as it was really before the AIDS scare. Plenty of kids drank as well - heck, I know a junior high school CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) team that lost in the New England championships because they were all hung over. Yes, I said junior high school.

There are a lot more organized activities for children after school and on weekends - when I was a kid, it was Little League baseball for boys and softball for girls, and that was about it.


There are a lot more choices for TV shows now with the advent of cable, but it seems the quality has dropped quite a bit nowadays even though it was only the three networks, plus PBS back then - if you lived in a big city, you might have an independent channel (like 11 in NY) - that said, there have been rare great shows in the past decade (The Sopranos, Buffy) that exceed most 70s to mid 80s shows in terms of quality.

There were far fewer women & minorities in middle & senior management positions in the working world and in prominent roles on TV and in the movies. I seriously doubt America was ready for a lesbian-hosted talk show (Ellen) back in the 70s or 80s.

Most of my toys growing up were made in Japan or in Taiwan.

Our Mattel Intellivision video game was state of the art for the time.

People did not fear their government like they do now, though many did fear the Soviet Union. We had the moral high ground over our international adversaries, unlike today.

[blues90]

100. I see what you see and agree , It would take a book or volumes

To bring the mental picture of the times when I grew up in the 50's into focus and compare it to today is almost impossible .

As close as I can come is to say or compare it to being religous and think of dying and crossing over to the other side if in fact another side exists and there you are faced with another world and dimention .

This is how different , how drastic the change has been , you start with nothing completely out of your element.

There has always been strife and hardship and issues , the rich and poor , racial issues and sexist issues so I will not say things were even close to perfect because they were not .

With that said , we are now so very far off base where we where once headed in a direction that if allowed to continue by now we may be much closer to a life that benefitted all .

I lived through Reagans destruction where everything in society was stripped away and re-constructed into a power structure that removed humanity from the dictionary .

As far as the future , who knows , I can't even contemplate how at this point it is possible to stop this power machine let alone turn it around , you almost have to begin again at the start to get back on a path where the common human is recognized as one part of everything and included in all .

[Matariki]

102. The two top contenders for the presidency are a black man and a woman.

[piedmont]

106. Fewer acres of forest and farmland (a LOT fewer). More McMansions. More cars.

Fewer goods produced by Americans. More goods and materials consumed.

But the fewer forested acres really disturbs me.

[lpbk2713]

107. Cynicism.

And I hold rethuglicans accountable for that.

It has gotten worse since the corrupt RayGun Regime.

Without RayGun we wouldn't have to deal with spawn

like Gingrich, BushCo and all the RW Radio Hatemongers.

Just to mention only a few out of many.

[Seashell Eyes]

109. I'm only 24

and I miss the 90's. Even then, kids seem to read more and play more with toys, not video games. The music, while not great, was still vastly better than now. I also miss not knowing who George W. Bush was and not being ashamed of my own country.

[natrat]

110. is this a trick question

[NeedleCast]

111. This Thread is the Old Man standing on the porch, shaking his fist

at the local kids on their skateboards.

Lot of things have changed over the past twenty years. Some (IMO) for the good, some for the worse. I like a lot of current music and socially we're a lot more progressive then we were twenty years ago. However there's a lot more of an authoritarian presence too and I attribute a lot of that to busy-bodyness of people who like to tell other people what to do.

[LibDemAlways]

112. I graduated from high school in 1970. My daughter is a

freshman today. When I went to high school, the academic work was only part of the equation. There were also a lot of activities that made school fun - dances and carnivals and the like. Not that we didn't work hard. We did. But the administrators understood that we were teenagers and created a balance for us.

My daughter's school is 99% drudgery. The only dance this year was a homecoming formal that cost $100.00 a couple for the tickets alone. There are no casual dance nights at all or any kind of inexpensive just plain fun activites.

There are no purely social clubs on campus - only heavy-duty stuff like "peer counseling group club" - the types of orgnaizations that look good on college applications but provide no relief from the academic drumbeat.

My daughter comes home at 3 and starts right in on her homework which she does until 10 or 11 each night. She has no social life at all. There isn't time. She can't even take an elective which interests her because the "core curriculum" leaves no room for it. She's stressed to the breaking point.

Everything has become so goddamn competitive and intense that I'm afraid she's going to burn out long before she gets to college. Not much I can do about it, but it sure is a pisser.

[European Socialist]

113. That's the problem--the Poodlemaker is making us relive...

the mistakes of the past 40 years--Vietnam, huge budget deficits, illegal domestic spying, Real estate bubbles. But, at least back then there was a decent MSM and real Democrats.

[notundecided]

114. The Movies

Todays movies are mostly crap.

[LibDemAlways]

121. Isn't that the truth. My suburb has two multiplexes that

play nothing but mainstream crap, and one tiny dilapidated little "art house" with a crappy sound system that ends up getting the few indie movies worth seeing.

[Uncle Joe]

115. I believe on the negative side in those days, we were more divided.

The thing I miss the most about those days, was space and privacy, it seems the government and or corporations can't invade our sphere of privacy enough to make themselves happy. They always say it's for a "good reason" but the result is the same. The older I get, the more brilliant George Orwell seems and I'm dreading what the world will be like, in the near future should this trend continue.

[napi21]

116. Almost everything!

There was no VISA or MasterCard...only some Department Store charge cards like Sears, Gimbels, Hornes, etc.

You had to have 20% cash to put down on a house, and WAIT several weeks, up to 8, to see if the Bank Board approved your mortgage.

There weren't any Fast Food places. As teenagers, we would go to Eat N Park, which had car hops! The first McDonalds opened when I was 19, and their food was awful!

There was no color TV, and TV broadcasting began at 7AM and stopped at Midnight. Upon signoff, they played "High Flight", the National Anthem, and then the TEST PATTERN.

There were no cordless phones, certainly no cell phones, and many homes had Party Lines. OH, and all phones were BLACK with a dial.

We were afraid to get in trouble in school because we'd be in worse trouble when we got home.

We weren't afraid to go to the playground, to the store, or stay out after dark playing with our friends when there was no school the next day.

We would NEVER have talked back to a teacher. SHE was suthority, and we respected authority.



It's quite amusing to me when I tell young people now that there were no credit cards as we know them, no Walmart, no Kmart, no Home Depot or Lowes, and no fast food, they look at me like "How the hell did you survive?"

[earth mom]

118. I hate the rampant greed and the vile mean nasty spiteful attitude that goes along with it.

That's why I can't stand Obama or Hillary. They support and represent the corporate bastards that have taken over this country. Corporate bastards who are also supported by the ugly disgusting 24/7 spew of Limbaugh O'Lielly & Coulter.

I hate how the greed and the spew that supports it has turned the younger generation into self centered thugs who populate freeperville and youtube, who have nothing better to do than spend their days dissing strangers with their venom filled comments. I watched a bit of a show on PBS last night about how these kids behave. They get online and start rumors and all kinds of ugly shit. It's disgusting and frightening. In middle & high school, they are cruel to the point of making other kids lives so miserable that they commit suicide.

I fear that we will never recover from the evil that O'Lielly, Limbaugh, Coulter, Congress, the Evil Corporate Bastards and * & Co have wrought.

This country is going down the tubes. And I don't know if it's too late to save it or not.

:argh:

[Atman]

122. We were afraid of commies, not our own goddamn president.

:shrug:

.

[Thothmes]

125. Prefer the All Volunteer Armed forces

You do not have to graduate from high school and then spend the next couple of years sweating being drafted into the army.

[annabanana]

127. There is no unfettered childhood. .

Every house in the neighborhood had a mother in it. She knew all the kids, who they belonged to and where they lived.

Kids were kicked out of the house in the morning and were pretty much "free-range". There was no such thing as a "play date".