That's because, like the rest of us that lived through that era, they won't remember the early 70's.

I loved the 60's and early 70's. Aside from the racial strife, and Soviet worries, it was a great time to be alive.

People weren't so soft and whiny. People were more focused on living rather than existing. There weren't all these distractions, people were forced to be apart of life around them. No internet, no decent TV by today's standards, no video games, no VCR's, etc., etc. All these things distract people from actually living life.

People interacted with other people, they walked in the woods, kids poked at things with sticks, built camp fires for the fun of it, walked along streams, people knew their neighbors and were always there for them when they needed a hand, adults worked hard and still enjoyed life. Back then people weren't so confused about what they needed vs what they wanted.

Was that before or after the race riots and war protests that threatened to tear the country apart?

Was that before or after the cities that made this country the industrial giant it is (Detroit, Gary, St. Louis, et al) emptied out?

sometimes masturbation is allllll mental

NewportBarGuy: Was that before or after the race riots and war protests that threatened to tear the country apart?

During.

And it can be argued that such contributed to the time being among America's finest moments.

I was born in the 70s, so I don't really remember anything much before the early/mid 80s.

However, despite the melodrama of the dude who wrote this article, I do see a decent point, there.

Holy cow! Someone needs to call a whaaambulance to go to the scene where the whaaambulance this guy was being transported in flipped over and burst into flames.

It had its moments

.

NewportBarGuy: Was that before or after the race riots and war protests that threatened to tear the country apart?

It peaked right before the dirty, nasty hippies appeared and dragged the US down.

Wanebo: During.

And it can be argued that such contributed to the time being among America's finest moments.

Are we including LBJ's Great Society, because that was pretty much a great response to the situation.

I just remember my father telling me as he got out of the Active Army and was going into the IRR they were training them for immediate call-up to be deployed on city streets.

That we got through that and progressed as a country quite rapidly is pretty amazing.

The late 60's? Wasn't that like when lots of people were farking like crazy and smoking alot of dope?

Does he seriously think that we haven't improved on that in the last 40 years?

Wow, when was the last time we had a Corporate MoFo link?

Having flashbacks to 2004

The Baby Boomers killed this country.

NewportBarGuy: That we got through that and progressed as a country quite rapidly is pretty amazing.

Yeah. Then the hippies grew up, let their ideals rot away and sold thier souls to wall street for a 401k plan and a new beemer. I find it ironic that a generation that coined the term 'free love' and once advocated 'tune in and drop out' as a way of life has become so hardcore about abstinance only programs and the 'war on drugs'. we went from 'fight the man' to no smoking please and looking the other way as everything from DUI checkpoints to no liquids on airplanes took over our lives.

when I look at things in that light, I'm almost glad that the stock market bottomed out and took the baby boomer retirement funds with it.

The past is always so much better and much more great than the present when you are afraid of change.

NewportBarGuy: Wanebo: During.

And it can be argued that such contributed to the time being among America's finest moments.

Are we including LBJ's Great Society, because that was pretty much a great response to the situation.

I just remember my father telling me as he got out of the Active Army and was going into the IRR they were training them for immediate call-up to be deployed on city streets.

That we got through that and progressed as a country quite rapidly is pretty amazing.

Socially the country was stunted in the early 60's. Technically we had made great strides. Strides beyond what the social norms were able to accept. LBJ's push for the interstate system actually had a large part to play in both sides. Intended and unintended.

The ease that travel became, with reatively fast travel time and low costs associated with doing so, had a large part to play with the racial strife, economic blending, and the antiwar protests/social conciousness that arose during the time.

And the ease in obtaining pshycoactive substances.

Halleluaha!

Yeah, but it was a society where women and minorities were not given equal opportunities. Note that second-wave feminism was essentially an early 1970s movement.

This is nostalgia for a social order that significantly constrained people who weren't white men from the middle class or upper class. It's nostalgia for an America that didn't really exist. An America that didn't live up to its own values and was torn apart by social conflict, where hindsight papers over those problems. The late 60s were a time of crisis everywhere in the world as baby boomers rebelled against the society their parents had created in the post-war period. People whose values would now be considered fairly staid and run-of-the-mill were branded as being radicals dangerous to the country because of their ideas. What kind of society is that?

Consider this recent New York Times feature on public opinion surveys from 1968.
81% agreed that law and order had broken down in the United States.
67% believe black people were asking for more than they were ready for; 63% believed they had less ambition than white people
53% of non-blacks said there should be laws against interracial marriage.
53% believe the rich get richer and the poor get poorer
49% felt more patriotic after Bobby Kennedy's assassination
44% believe black people are less intelligent than white people
31% felt Martin Luther King Jr. was to blame for his own assassination.

Future historians will note that American society peaked in the late 1960s. Culturally, this is a foregone conclusion.

If you insist.

We listen to our parents' music and call it "classic rock," a canon that can be approached but never surpassed.

Every classic rock station I've ever listened to has music ranging from the late '50s to the mid-'80s, and a LOT of it is from the '70s

When we think of art, we think of Warhol and Rothko.

Rothwho?

Our top-selling cultural products have names like "Star Wars" and "Star Trek"-nostalgic Baby Boomer dreams that one day man will dance amongst the heavenly spheres, whereas in reality we have come crashing down, Icarus-like, in fiery debris.

I get it: you are a balding, fat, burned out geek

Of course it peaked then, everyone was on acid all the time.

HaywoodJablonski: I get it: you are a balding, fat, burned out geek

No, we're a stunted and twisted mockery of what we were supposed to become. we wanted to colonize the stars, instead we're fighting yet another war in a far away land for reasons nobody can quite articulate. Sand this time instead of a jungle but that's not much of an improvement.

History will note that the Baby Boomers and their children's expansionist economic tenancies began the downfall of world society. The US will not be alone.

Eddie Adams from Torrance: The late 60's? Wasn't that like when lots of people were farking like crazy and smoking alot of dope?

Does he seriously think that we haven't improved on that in the last 40 years?

That stuff wasn't going on any more than it has been at most other times in history. It's just that in the late 60's people were talking about it more openly than they ever had before.

Weaver95: abstinance only programs and the 'war on drugs'

Indeed.

then: Sex, drugs, and rock and roll man! Peace out!

Now: Abstinence only, just say no, Hannah Montana! Go buy stuff to help the economy.

So it's agreed then? Time for an age war?

I want to point out another hole in the article's logic: Star Wars is from the late 70s-early 80s and features black and white people and all manners of aliens working together, strong female characters in leadership positions (and occasionally sexy gold bikinis). If anything it's a fantasy about an egalitarian, much more technologically advanced society. The rebels defeat this highly conformist (contrast the stormtroopers with the ragged bunch of rebels), highly authoritarian society powered by the dark side of the force, anger and fear.

You can't really say Star Wars is typical of the late 60s era or even compare it with Star Trek. I mean sure, Star Trek had a multiracial cast, but Lt. Uhura was basically the ship's secretary.

Eddie Adams from Torrance: The late 60's? Wasn't that like when lots of people were farking like crazy and smoking alot of dope?

Does he seriously think that we haven't improved on that in the last 40 years?

Well, the dope has improved significantly at least.

/not that i would know anything about that

bobbette: I want to point out another hole in the article's logic

TFA was apparently written by someone born at the time, not actually aware and cognizant of what they were doing.

Oh. Wait. Damned on half of that here.

HaywoodJablonski: Wow, when was the last time we had a Corporate MoFo link?

Having flashbacks to 2004

September, sez my submit-o-matic.

But you old skool.

Peace!

Wanebo: The ease that travel became, with reatively fast travel time and low costs associated with doing so, had a large part to play with the racial strife, economic blending, and the antiwar protests/social conciousness that arose during the time.

That's an excellent point. I hadn't thought of it that way.

The myth of Progress is dead; all we have to look for is a mediocre world of diminished expectations.

Failure of imagination, slackermofo.

HaywoodJablonski: Wow, when was the last time we had a Corporate MoFo link?

Yeah, miss you, babe! Welcome home?

TheOther: The myth of Progress is dead; all we have to look for is a mediocre world of diminished expectations.

Failure of imagination, slackermofo.

I think corporatemofo is dead on target. we stopped looking forward a long time ago. Now our society is absolutely terrified of anyone who makes actual progress in any field.

Corporate Mofo: HaywoodJablonski: Wow, when was the last time we had a Corporate MoFo link?

Having flashbacks to 2004

September, sez my submit-o-matic.

But you old skool.

Peace!

Damn. I'm never drinking again!

darkhorse23: HaywoodJablonski: Wow, when was the last time we had a Corporate MoFo link?

Yeah, miss you, babe! Welcome home?

Thanks?

Weaver95: I think corporatemofo is dead on target. we stopped looking forward a long time ago. Now our society is absolutely terrified of anyone who makes actual progress in any field.

And also having lived through all the eras from then to now, I agree too. I think things started going downhill about '75.

Weaver95: TheOther: The myth of Progress is dead; all we have to look for is a mediocre world of diminished expectations.

Failure of imagination, slackermofo.

I think corporatemofo is dead on target. we stopped looking forward a long time ago. Now our society is absolutely terrified of anyone who makes actual progress in any field.

We've been there before, again and again, just before it got loud and weird...again and again. Have a little faith.

TheOther: The myth of Progress is dead; all we have to look for is a mediocre world of diminished expectations.

Failure of imagination, slackermofo.

I see it more as a tech has passed social issues by a wide margin yet again. Unfortunately our countries politicians have reacted in the past, and will probably react again the same way again, and try to stifle the tech while they try to fathom it.

Yep. Scientists, using the scientific method and double checking what they find, are about 25 times faster than politicians. That's because politicians are reacting to what has happened and trying to find their angle on how it will keep them in a job. They manage. But less so as the years move on if they aren't allowed to manage science.

TheOther: We've been there before, again and again, just before it got loud and weird...again and again. Have a little faith.

A so called 'conservative' president nationalized the banking system and nobody so much as blinked. A guy who stole BILLIONS of dollars got house arrest and is living in his $7 million dollar luxury apartment complex. Drug smugglers are running cocaine into this country using custom built submarines. Local police are using federal dollars to purchase mil-spec gear to take down local cannabis growing operations.

I don't think we're gonna recover until we start admitting we've got problems.

Weaver95: we stopped looking forward a long time ago

Three examples that prove this.

1: NASA. We once landed men on the moon. We now no longer can do this. If we wanted to do so, it'd either require a decades long program or the help of the Russians.

2: Our phone network. When Bell Telephone ran things you picked up the phone and it worked. Today we tolerate shiatty service as evidenced by "Can you hear me now?" commercials. 40 years ago that wouldn't have been tolerated, but now we accept "low bars" and we are allegedly a superpower.

3: We were once an independent country that was mostly self-sufficient. Today we get our electronics (that we invented) from Japan, our steel from China (when I live in THE steel city), and our labor from third world countries.

We are a dying empire yet no one wants to face that fact.

Weaver95: Now our society is absolutely terrified of anyone who makes actual progress in any field.

I don't know. I don't think that's anything new, honestly. This country at times has been had to be dragged kicking and screaming towards the future. But when we have a leader who's actually capable of uniting us to work for that future, we surprise ourselves with our resolve.

I guess that depends on what we do right now.

I think that there is hope, and it's not on the horizon, but is linked to what we do right now. Not in the future, and not some mythical group of people, but what we do now.

Part of it is, that we have swallowed the myth that it's other people doing things. Other people are at fault.

When we need to take a look around, and take some responsibility. That is the real problem. A societal shift away from responsibility. That's been happening for a while, and in part, we can link that to the Boomer mentality of trying to shift blame. Not a lot of responsibility taken, just looking to put it off on someone else.

The economy. Domestic policy. Foreign policy.

It's the fault of the regulators. The bankers. The government for not paying attention...

We are the government. We took our eyes off the wheel, and things got farked up. We allowed politicians to get and stay in office who were corrupt ass bags, and while we whined about it, we KEPT ELECTING THEM.

That's on us. No one else. We did that. Now, we have to deal with the consequences.

Domestic policy isn't the fault of the gays, the Liberals, the teachers, the unions, the sick, the unemployed, the criminals, the police. We set those policies. We stick our noses in other peoples' business, and we're surprised we find shiat we don't like? There's a reason that Grandma told you not to be nosey. It's not polite. Our schools are failing, and we keep trying to blame teachers who are in the classroom, as opposed to the Administrators who make the policies that the teachers have to deal with, our school boards who set those budgets, or our own desire to cut property taxes, and defund schools and prioritize sports over education funds. WE farked the pooch on our schools, and we keep looking for folks to blame. Same as with crime. Same as with unemployment. Same as with medical policy.

Foreign policy has been linked to the sins of our fathers, and we keep making the same dumb ass mistakes. Not politicians. Not some nebulous "other" but us, and that's the real biatch of the thing.

We are at fault. All of us. Not the Republicans. Not the Democrats. Not whitey. Not Messicans. Not the Arabs, Israelis, or anyone else. We have pooped in our own dog dish, and we are looking at doing ANYTHING but clean that shiat up.

Until we own up, and take responsibility--and stop trying to equivocate blame with responsibility, we won't make a damn thing better.

Blame is handed down. Blame we can try to shed, blame we can put onto others in an endless round robin.

Responsibility, that's taken on. The buck stops, and there is no passing off or handing off to, it stops with us, and then we can DO something.

Stop blaming everyone else, take some goddamn responsibility for your share of the problem, and then DO something. Start small, but stop making the bone headed mistakes over and over again. Stop listening to the idiots who want to shed their own part of this mess. They aren't the solution--because they can't see their own culpability, and their noise just confuses the background.

Take some responsibility, and stop the round robin.

Weaver95: A so called 'conservative' president nationalized the banking system and nobody so much as blinked. A guy who stole BILLIONS of dollars got house arrest and is living in his $7 million dollar luxury apartment complex. Drug smugglers are running cocaine into this country using custom built submarines. Local police are using federal dollars to purchase mil-spec gear to take down local cannabis growing operations.

I don't think we're gonna recover until we start admitting we've got problems.

Hey, I remember reading that James Taylor was the future of rock n roll. We always have problems. Surmounting them with style and grace is what makes us who we are.

eddyatwork: We are a dying empire yet no one wants to face that fact.

The life cycle of empire:

Origin --- Ascendancy --- Consolidation --- Stagnation --- Decline

We're about -------------------------------------------^ there, somewhere between stagnation and decline. Very, very few nation-states have repeated that cycle once they started declining, and I can't think of a single one that hasn't had to undergo violent social upheaval to do so.

eddyatwork: Weaver95: we stopped looking forward a long time ago

Three examples that prove this.

1: NASA. We once landed men on the moon. We now no longer can do this. If we wanted to do so, it'd either require a decades long program or the help of the Russians.

2: Our phone network. When Bell Telephone ran things you picked up the phone and it worked. Today we tolerate shiatty service as evidenced by "Can you hear me now?" commercials. 40 years ago that wouldn't have been tolerated, but now we accept "low bars" and we are allegedly a superpower.

3: We were once an independent country that was mostly self-sufficient. Today we get our electronics (that we invented) from Japan, our steel from China (when I live in THE steel city), and our labor from third world countries.

We are a dying empire yet no one wants to face that fact.

1. We could reuse most of the tech and land on the moon again within a couple of years. Politicians will not let that happen because funding will be cut to an agency that takes "risks inherent and grave" if somebody may die. Such an agency will not take that risk of being defunded. See above mentioned politicians. When the Gemeni and Apollo astronauts died on the launchpad did you see congress run to cut their funds? No. Then again NASA has become a government agency that is very apt at playing the "I might not be able to do that if I can't overrun my budget but, meh, a few billion $".

2. You are talking wired vs cellular phones. Bell was never a government agency even before they were broke up. Make a cogent argument.

3. Don't like it? Move. No. Really. You think we invented most of the electronics in cell phones? Japan is your answer. Want a PS3? Youmight want to move to China since they make more than 45% of the parts and were involved with developing over 65% of those. Find another supplier. And if you want acertified clean one be prepared for a 30% increase in the cost of your electronics.

eddyatwork:

1: NASA. We once landed men on the moon.

Admittedly, nothing in my lifetime is likely to surpass a Saturn V launch as awesome. The Moon turned out to be kind of a dead end until other technologies are developed.

2: Our phone network.

Right we had one phone network and it was the best way to contact someone. Now, I won't even pick up a phone to answer it unless I have to. We'll exchange emails instead.

3: We were once an independent country

We've always been dependent on immigrants and the fact the rest of the world is catching up doesn't mean we're falling behind.

We are a dying empire yet no one wants to face that fact.

Man up, Nancy. Show a little backbone.

Wanebo: They're a series of anecdotes that help paint a picture of a whole. We've been coasting along on the same superior arrogance that the British exhibited at the end of the age of sail. It took them over a century of slow erosion to become at best a second string power. Nowadays, societal change moves much, much faster.

Wanebo: You think we invented most of the electronics in cell phones?

We invented all of the important ones. Think of it as a locomotive; we may have not invented everything that makes the boxcar work but we did invent the engine and the linkage and the hydraulic brakes that run through the entire train.

All of the tech that runs cell phones today was developed either in San Diego (most of the multiple signal processing that allows us to do "3g" stuff), Chicago (most of the antenna stuff that makes up the "cellular" of cellular phones) or Los Angeles (The power management stuff that keeps your battery alive for days instead of hours). Not to mention radio itself (Tesla, in the US, and don't say Marconi) and frequency division (Hedy Lamar, the movie star, invented that.

Yeah, Japan invented a few things that make the internal clocks work, maybe invented a few other things regarding how the button pads work or the LCD screens that are currently in use, but really, those are just window dressing that wouldn't run without the framework invented right here in the US.

I lived through the sixties, so I am getting a kick out of this thread.

A friend of mine categorized the sixties thusly: "The Great Marble Famine." As in, almost everyone had lost their marbles.

I do not regard that time as a "Golden Age," but as a time when it was difficult to walk, due to lost marbles rolling about on the ground.

eddyatwork: The Baby Boomers killed this country.

A dramatic population increase killed this country.

When I was a kid, there were far fewer people, it was amazing.

DandamanFL: Of course it peaked then, everyone was on acid all the time.

Don't believe the nonsense they spew about the 60's and early 70's. Most people back then thought drug users were idiots. Only a small percentage of the people were using drugs. Most of what you read and see in movies about the wanton drug use is all hype. Perhaps it was more common in the big cities, but not most other places.