OK, I been thinking... exactly when was America "great?"

[Veliko]

My great grandmother owned a cafe that was segregated, one of my great uncles told me about it. Blacks had to enter through the backdoor and had a small area in the back to eat.

Sounds pretty bad, right? After all you do not consider that "especially "great"".

Well, consider that going out to eat typically requires disposable income. Having disposable income, and getting whites to serve blacks shows great levels of progress. This was in the 1940s - 1960s. Because of a new road being put in during the late 1960s, granny had to close the cafe and move.

When the interstate highway project was being developed, part of my grannys land was bought by the state. That is why she had to move.

So yea, segregation seems bad, but it was progress. They had access to clean water, education, jobs... more than what people in other nations have even today.

If the supreme court had done their job in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson , segregation would not have been an issue.

Was segregation wrong? Yes it was. But it was a growing pain the nation had to endure.

You act like that is a bad thing.

America was great because black people were marginalised, and people in general were sexually repressed.

Two posts of insanity.

 

[Muse]

It was a magic time and place (Minneapolis) to be a kid that morphed into bizarro land in the 60's.

Yeah, well, Bob Dylan was from Hibbing, MN. Plenty of America morphed majorly in the 1960's.

 

[bshole]

back when white majority milk toaste culture wasnt challenged by actual interesting culture.

It was interesting for the whites who lived it. Back then America was 90% white.

My parents were the children of poor white farmers in Nebraska. When my mom graduated from high school she owned a total of two dresses, both of which she made herself. She got up every morning at 4:30AM to hand milk the cows before going to school. She was an expert cook. She was an amateur nurse. She was an amateur vet. She lived in a house without electricity/plumbing and with only a pot belly stove for warmth during the winter. At night the family gathered around the stove to read, converse. do homework or play games. When neighbors fell ill, her family would bring in the crops and tend the animals for them. There was a sense of community, family and purpose. She was happy. Very happy.

That has all been shredded by an "interesting culture" that doesn't give a fuck about community, family or purpose but instead obsesses over material possessions. What do you have that I don't have? What does that celebrity have? What can I buy today that I can throw away tomorrow? As if the quest for simple material possessions is a culture in and of itself.

There is a level of unhappiness in my kids generation that is truly frightening. A growing proportion are disaffected, isolated, without community and without purpose. Kids that waste away on drugs, video games and social media without leading real lives that engage with the world outside. Kids addicted to instant gratification. This is what I am seeing on the ground and it is borne out in the statistics. Suicides and depression are skyrocketing in the younger generation. What better evidence do you need of a culture dying than having a growing proportion of the young give up hope?

Compare architecture/art/literature of the past 1000 years. Why is it that the most culturally relevant achievements appear to have happened 100s of years ago? Where is the modern Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Tolstoy, Hume, Da Vinci, Bosch, Beethoven, Mozart etc... It is hard to imagine much (if any) of the architecture built today being around 500 years from now, it is disposable architecture... built for utility, not for beauty nor longevity. It reflects what we now have... material acquisition of disposable items as culture.

Our present culture was engineered by people like Earnest Calkins who famously wrote:

Goods fall into two classes: those that we use, such as motor cars or safety razors, and those that we use up, such as toothpaste or soda biscuits. Consumer engineering must see to it that we use up the kind of goods we now merely use.

Well they accomplished their goal. The jury is still out as to whether that is a net positive for America.

 

[Muse]

It was interesting for the whites who lived it. Back then America was 90% white.

Dig, I'm white, but the browning of America can't happen fast enough for me.

 

[Muse]

... we now have... material acquisition of disposable items as culture.

I had an awesome GF who said to me accusingly, "you want all your things to last forever."

I made no answer. It was true, I detested (and still do) the planned obsolescence of modern culture. When I saw the first Japanese compact cars (late 1970's, I guess) I was "Aha! That car looks like it was designed to last, not be replaced in 3-5 years as obsolete." I fix stuff. I have to throw away more stuff. Not to be replaced, just to unclutter my life.

 

[Jhhnn]

It's easy to idealize the America of our childhoods because we were only children, not adults. All of us were sheltered to some degree or another, disconnected from the reality of adult life.

Perhaps one of the most startling aspects of it all is how conservatives idealize the post-WW2 period, a time when our society actually had more socialistic features instituted by the New Deal. Strong Unions. Regulated industries. More egalitarianism. The great fortunes of the 20's & earlier had been leveled by conscious tax efforts & dissipated by split inheritance. But now they're champions of the Wealthy, and of greed itself. Go figure.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

America began pulling itself out of the crocodile-piss sinkhole five minutes ago -- in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Defeat Trumpism! Send the Trump family back to Russia! Your lease is numbered, Trump!

 

[Muse]

America began pulling itself out of the crocodile-piss sinkhole five minutes ago -- in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Defeat Trumpism! Send the Trump family back to Russia! Your lease is numbered, Trump!

Explain? Wha' happen?

 

[GodisanAtheist]

America is great not because life is awesome everyday for everyone living here always but because no matter what point in time you go back in our history you'll always find someone fighting, and sometimes winning and sometimes losing, for what is right/good/just/honest and pulling this whole country forward despite itself.

That has not stopped, America isn't spent yet.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Explain? Wha' happen?

Warren announced candidacy, and despite the shrill voice she can do nothing about, she hit a lot of nails on the head. She used Trump's name exactly twice.

Schultz needs to meditate and contemplate his roots, and even the modest idea of starting a few barista-bars with borrowed money -- and stay the hell out of the race.

I've always been a fence-sitting moderate until I predicted both 911 and Bush's war on Sept 10, 2001 around a campfire, and concluded what it was that I knew which allowed for such robustly correct predictions. I'd always adopted a moderate position as a registered Democrat, and I only registered as a Democrat because I thought I saw things too clearly, even so late in life.

The cautious strategy for defeating Trump would be choosing Biden or some moderate, and I'd be fine with Biden. But Trump is disgusting and destructive for certain profound reasons, and Warren pretty much summarized what they were. He's a symptom, as she says, not a cause.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

America is great not because life is awesome everyday for everyone living here always but because no matter what point in time you go back in our history you'll always find someone fighting, and sometimes winning and sometimes losing, for what is right/good/just/honest and pulling this whole country forward despite itself.

That has not stopped, America isn't spent yet.

I always figured when Joe Biden could soar and lift people up with a rhetorical presentation, it must have come from some priest in a pulpit who impressed him in his youth.

You've got something there. You should adopt a similar catchy rhetorical style, and take your act on the road, Bro!

 

[jmagg]

Busted balls in construction my entire life, besides winter unemployment, never took a dime from the system. America has been, and is still great.
Edit
May have used WIC early on.

 

[Mai72]

IMO, America is great TODAY! People need to put things in perspective. We aren't being sent to a violent war. Although racisim still exist, minorities can attend college. They can pursue a career that isn't off limits because of their color. Women can do the same. Both can vote today. My sister who is a programmer makes $120k a year. She's also gay, and works in a field dominated by young men. Makes more money than most guys I know. If you want money, the opportunities to do well finanically are there. You can learn on your own today. YouTube, Coursera. Online courses. We have the internet. You aren't going to die fromt he common cold today. No one is stopping you today from being whar you want. AGAIN, NO ONE IS STOPPING YOU!

Yet, there are people who love playing the victim. Look at me! I'm a victim! They should go to places like Thailand whenre upward mobility is nonexisrtent. I was teaching at a public school, and every morning we went to the court yard to pray to a picture of the Thai King. For 2 hours! We have it great here. Are there issues? Yes. But lets put it in perspective. I'd rather be alive today than 50 years ago. And, I'm a white guy.

Gratitude is key. **NSFW**

 

[Jhhnn]

IMO, America is great TODAY! People need to put things in perspective. We aren't being sent to a violent war. Although racisim still exist, minorities can attend college. They can pursue a career that isn't off limits because of their color. Women can do the same. Both can vote today. My sister who is a programmer makes $120k a year. She's also gay, and works in a field dominated by young men. Makes more money than most guys I know. If you want money, the opportunities to do well finanically are there. You can learn on your own today. YouTube, Coursera. Online courses. We have the internet. You aren't going to die fromt he common cold today. No one is stopping you today from being whar you want. AGAIN, NO ONE IS STOPPING YOU!

Yet, there are people who love playing the victim. Look at me! I'm a victim! They should go to places like Thailand whenre upward mobility is nonexisrtent. I was teaching at a public school, and every morning we went to the court yard to pray to a picture of the Thai King. For 2 hours! We have it great here. Are there issues? Yes. But lets put it in perspective. I'd rather be alive today than 50 years ago. And, I'm a white guy.

Gratitude is key. **NSFW**

Tell it to the raving Trumpsters.

 

[Starbuck1975]

It's easy to idealize the America of our childhoods because we were only children, not adults. All of us were sheltered to some degree or another, disconnected from the reality of adult life.

Perhaps one of the most startling aspects of it all is how conservatives idealize the post-WW2 period, a time when our society actually had more socialistic features instituted by the New Deal. Strong Unions. Regulated industries. More egalitarianism. The great fortunes of the 20's & earlier had been leveled by conscious tax efforts & dissipated by split inheritance. But now they're champions of the Wealthy, and of greed itself. Go figure.

Why? Eisenhower was President during the 50s, the greatest Republican President of the 20th century and second only to Lincoln overall.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Yeah, well, Bob Dylan was from Hibbing, MN. Plenty of America morphed majorly in the 1960's.

There were 4 people during that time who decided to "protect" the "heartland of America" from the evil influences of the coasts ( yes, they really did speak that way). The gang of four between them controlled all of the media in Minneapolis. Television, radio, print was all censured to that end. You had to go to an adult bookstore to purchase rabid publications like Rolling Stone or, Mother Earth News. Radio stations only played top forty or Lawrence Welk type music and nothing by black artists. Television showed national news and only positive local stories. The Minneapolis Tribune focused on business, local feel good stories and buried unsettling national news in the C or D sections.

 

[Jhhnn]

Why? Eisenhower was President during the 50s, the greatest Republican President of the 20th century and second only to Lincoln overall.

Eisenhower wasn't a Republican at all by modern standards. Both Parties invited him to run under their banner. The tectonic shift of southern white conservatives to the GOP changed the Party entirely.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Yeah, when?

I can't think of an era. I took American history courses, I've been here a while, have striven to inform myself in a variety of ways.

Was it Tom Brokaw who coined the term, "the greatest generation?" What was so damn great about America 1941-1945? Yeah, we stopped the Axis nations, but life sucked, it was terrible. Able bodied men were sent off the war all over the planet, women were pressed into service in the factories. Staples were rationed. Millions were being butchered all over the planet. Life sucked.

Pre WW II, it was isolationism. Prohibition failed, hypocrisy was everywhere. There was the Great Depression. Sucked!

Before that, the robber barons of capitalism. The industrial revolution set us on a course to ruin the planet. Then the war to end all wars, WW I, followed by the Spanish flu, prohibition, the Great depression.

Mid 19th century America was a time I would not want to have lived. It was relatively barbaric as we plundered the land and mistreated a major portion of the populace in ways that boggle the mind. Before that, well, it was practically prehistoric.

Post WW II was a dull period of psychological depression called the 1950s.

After that was the swingin' 60's, but whoa! The Vietnam War, the conflict in the streets, the protest movement aspect of America being seriously embedded in the national consciousness. America did not escape from its psychological/cultural/political chains.

The 1970's we witnessed the cooptation of all that was positive about the 1960's and the birth of more radical subcultures based on rejection of everything before.

The 1980's we had the me generation, gag me with a spoon.

The 1990's we had political polarization that turns your stomach and it's only gotten worse.

The 21st century has revealed that mankind is self destructing and the USA is abdicating its leadership position in moving forward in a positive way.

Great again? What mularky!

You sound like my grandson, who is a college student. Very unpatriotic, almost anti-American. I think the question was not when was america "'Great". Our country has done good things and bad things. He only seems to focus on the bad things. The question to me is not whether America is or has been "great", but what countries offer(ed) a better system. Russia under the Czars, Stalin, and Kruschev? Germany under Hitler? Colonial Britain, France, etc? I would say the Scandinavian countries would probably be the best choice.

 

[paperfist]

Did I say we shouldn't have declared war on Dec. 7, 1941?

It was terrific we (with the other Allied nations) defeated Germany/Italy/Japan, no doubt about it. But that doesn't mean we were great. We were not great.

You do know prior to WWII we fielded basically no army. I guess there's nothing great than about going from a 200,000 military to 11,000,000 almost overnight. Kids lying about their age to join in a war that many of them would never return from. Going from 800 planes to building 50,000 a year.

I get that it was a world war and we weren't the only ones fighting the axis, but our response to entering that war was nothing short of monumental.

I shudder to think what would happen if a world war broke out today...

I'm just curious what you consider great, the Pyramids, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the rise of Jesus, the creation of the iPhone, Bach's great works?

 

[frozentundra123456]

There were 4 people during that time who decided to "protect" the "heartland of America" from the evil influences of the coasts ( yes, they really did speak that way). The gang of four between them controlled all of the media in Minneapolis. Television, radio, print was all censured to that end. You had to go to an adult bookstore to purchase rabid publications like Rolling Stone or, Mother Earth News. Radio stations only played top forty or Lawrence Welk type music and nothing by black artists. Television showed national news and only positive local stories. The Minneapolis Tribune focused on business, local feel good stories and buried unsettling national news in the C or D sections.

HUH? I was not here in the 60's, but came in 1970, very close to that time. I dont recall the media being at all close to being that controlled. Are you really saying no radio stations played Motown music in the 60s? And werent there plenty of black artist in the top 40, like the Supremes and a lot of other Motown acts and artists? In general, Minneapolis might have been very conservative in those days, but I think you are exaggerating the situation. And who was this "Gang of 4" you are talking about?

 

[Jhhnn]

You do know prior to WWII we fielded basically no army. I guess there's nothing great than about going from a 200,000 military to 11,000,000 almost overnight. Kids lying about their age to join in a war that many of them would never return from. Going from 800 planes to building 50,000 a year.

I get that it was a world war and we weren't the only ones fighting the axis, but our response to entering that war was nothing short of monumental.

I shudder to think what would happen if a world war broke out today...

I'm just curious what you consider great, the Pyramids, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the rise of Jesus, the creation of the iPhone, Bach's great works?

The country had been prepped for it through all the great socialistic efforts of the New Deal. The CCC, WPA, Bureau of Reclamation & a whole alphabet soup of programs convinced America that govt could do great things when we all pulled together. When called upon to sacrifice to whup Axis ass we rose to the challenge.

 

[paperfist]

The country had been prepped for it through all the great socialistic efforts of the New Deal. The CCC, WPA, Bureau of Reclamation & a whole alphabet soup of programs convinced America that govt could do great things when we all pulled together. When called upon to sacrifice to whup Axis ass we rose to the challenge.

You don’t train millions of men and women for war on foreign lands through government prep programs in a few short years, right?

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

HUH? I was not here in the 60's, but came in 1970, very close to that time. I dont recall the media being at all close to being that controlled. Are you really saying no radio stations played Motown music in the 60s? And werent there plenty of black artist in the top 40, like the Supremes and a lot of other Motown acts and artists? In general, Minneapolis might have been very conservative in those days, but I think you are exaggerating the situation. And who was this "Gang of 4" you are talking about?

No Motown. No rock and roll. No blues. Later on in the 70's when you were there do you remember when Heile Selassie died? I think it was 1975. He was arguably the single most influential leader in the middle East at the time. The Star and Trib buried it on page 4 of the C section. With a human interest story and a picture of a puppy on the front page. I don't remember the names of the gang of four. One of them was Mayor at the time in addition to his media holdings.

 

[Thump553]

You act like that is a bad thing.

What happened when we left "straightsville"? No fault divorces went up, which led to children being raised in broken homes, which led to increased juvenile crimes, which led to higher crime rates.

Why is HIV an epidemic? Lots of people having gay sex and drug use.

We need to go back to straightsville, raise children in secure homes, and this nation would be much better off.

Really old joke-One of the worst things about getting HIV is convincing your mother you are Haitian. HIV/AIDS pass among straight people too, and always have. No disease is a punishment from God-at least not from any God worthy of human worship in my book.

And as far as divorce law goes, I began practicing law at the end of the fault system-it was an unproductive nightmare that did nothing more than make divorces more costly-to the benefit of lawyers involved and to the determent of society as a whole.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Part of the reason we have a "Great America" myth lies in a need to shore up national unity, pride and morale.

There is a downside. If I were getting news-feeds from the USA as a foreign citizen, it would seem like chest-thumping behavior in a King-of-the-Mountain game.

What we had under Obama included a human virtue called "humility", which followed Teddy Roosevelt's maxim "Speak softly but carry a big stick". The trouble with playing King of the Mountain derives from the fact that all the other players want to knock you down. It could also lead to arms races, and it probably has, given intelligence about N. Korea and similar chest-thumping by Vlad the Impaler about his new missile projects.

What we have with Trump is an outrage of several dimensions, as if he were a contender on the WWWF Smackdown. This appeals to his Base, its blue-collar cohort addicted to the NFL and Speed channel, which in turn, explains why some working-class Trumpies piss and fume about Colin Kaepernick's posture during the national anthem, as if not standing for the Flag were some enormous crime with great national security implications. And that's the mentality which assisted the Russians in electing Trump.

America took a slump when the Bush 43 White House manipulated the Defense Department, who, in turn, manipulated CIA into producing false intelligence about weapons of mass destruction. This was a serious lie with enormous consequences, but Bush's lying was pee-wee league compared to Trump's and Trump's potential to spin greater lies for at least the next two years if he isn't removed legitimately, dead from some physical ailment or simply blown away when they misplace the limousine's bubble-top in a Zapruder re-make. [As for that, someone would need to create an even greater lie by putting a neo-Nazi FBI-informant in a book depository and using resources that are much less available today for covert operations than they were the first time. And given the paranoid deranged Trumpie Base and its penchant for conspiracy theories, they wouldn't believe the same lie twice. Nobody would. Of course, a well-constructed cover-story could also blame the Russians, but then -- they themselves wouldn't believe it. Put that idea in the round file.]

So -- make America sane again in 2020, if impeachment, indictment, arraignment, trial and conviction don't happen soon enough to give MSNBC a year-long series of "Presidential Suite" on "MSNBC Lockup". MSNBC can still plan their weekend series after Trump loses the election.

If there were any "greatness" or exceptionalism, it fell into the shadows before November, 2016. There has always been a lower underbelly in the American character. And somehow, that reptilian part needs to crawl under a rock. Our greatness will rise if we succeed in making it happen sooner rather than later.