Ironic that even by 1971 people were reminiscing about the “good old days” which are now long gone. Thankfully most of those who were elderly in 1971 have passed on or their heads might explode if they saw the current state of things.
Boy the way Glenn Miller played
Songs that made the hit parade
Guys like us we had it made
Those were the days
And you knew who you were then
Girls were girls and men were men
Mister we could use a man
Like Herbert Hoover again
Didn’t need no welfare state
Everybody pulled his weight
Gee our old LaSalle ran great
Those were the days
{In the longer version}
People seemed to be content
Fifty dollars paid the rent
Freaks were in a circus tent
Those were the days
Take a little Sunday spin
Go to watch the Dodgers win
Have yourself a dandy day
That cost you under a fin
Hair was short and skirts were long
Kate Smith really sold a song
I don’t know just what went wrong
Those were the days
Of course when I was a kid in the 70s I didn’t really get it, had long hair and loved girls in short skirts. Still don’t see the big deal with either and would gladly listen to Glen Miller if it meant we could abandon the nanny “welfare” state, make reliable cars in this country again and your typical person could find a decent job that covered the cost of living.
Seems like we screwed it all up trying to fix it when it wasn’t all that broke.
Everybody has always waxed eloquent about “the good old days”. (sarcasm) Apparently someone around the time of Gilgamesh f___ed it all up and it has been downhill ever since. (/sarcasm)
71 was just damage done in the 60s. In trying to address the problems of 1940s-50s America we seemed to have undone the things that were actually working and replaced them with ideas that seemed right but were actually a disaster.
There was no “perfect age”, we know that. The economic gains of the 50s and 80s were done under the threat of nuclear Armageddon. We didn’t have anything close to equality in the 50s, the problem is we still don’t and in trying to fix Problem A we created a much worse Problem B.
As a teenager in the 70s, live was good. I was getting laid, throwing keggers, smoking shitty pot, cruisin’ around listening to tunes on the 8-track, then off to college. I knew about Vietnam, Watergate, stagflation, the Arab oil embargo, but I was too wrapped up in my own little world to worry about it. If I had five bucks in my pocket come Friday night I was good to go.
For my parents and folks who were trying to make it, I think the 70s probably sucked pretty hard.
The pendulum has swung almost 180 degrees since then on that shit. Not sure what you’re referring to with regards to “equality” but if it includes race and gender then please spare me.
My father graduated high school in 1959, lost a couple of cousins in Korea and he elisted for 'Nam early on before the draft. I’d say since then we have slid waaaaaay down that slipery slope and there is no way to regain the ground lost. I really envy my father for being a teen during the 50’s, just watch American Araffiti and then compare that to where we are now.
While we were fighting the proliferation of communism overseas, it was blossoming right here at home, from the lowest government drone to the highest elected office.
Communism always was and always will be a legitimate “boogie man”.
If you mean it’s just about a complete opposite of 50 years ago I’ll agree. That includes what is called “institutional racism”…it too now represents “reverse racism” although that term itself is an oxymoron (racism is racism, period).
That’s what I’m talking about. So long as we have any form of “accepted racism” we will never have equality. Opportunity should be “merit based” not “pigment based.” This is what we were sold in the civil rights movement, but all we did was take a group that was discriminated against and we turned them into a protected class that would get preferential consideration. That’s not equality, that is simply racism again.
About 20 years ago my Depression-era, smarter-than-I’ll-ever-be WWII veteran father asked me if I thought the country was becoming decadent. He caught me a little flat-footed and I didn’t have a ready answer. Today I would, and it would be in the affirmative.
Society doesn’t always move in linear progress in a straight line manner. Right now I’d say we’re going backwards at a fair clip.
Every generation for 2000 years has said that. We all think there is something unique about the way that our society is evolving during our generation.
I don’t think the 80s generation was wanting to return to the 70s era Carter recession years. The 90s had some definite issues but I don’t think that generation was wanting to return to the Carter recession years. The Bush years were definitely a mix of good and bad but still I don’t think anyone wanted to return to the Carter recession years.
I think since about 2010 things have finally gotten bad enough that they are as bad or worse than the Carter recession years.
So I really don’t think it’s a matter of “every generation has said that.”