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

[ivwshane]

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.

So as long as we strive to be better than the worst countries at their worst times we are great?

I don't think it's your grandson that is unpatriotic.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

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 don't have to call it "great". I'm wondering if our culture and values have fallen or risen since WWII. As of January 2017 or even the campaign leading to it, and as I've said in earlier posts, what was always there in the shadows of the American character is suddenly in center stage for all to see.

But I might suggest that you do yourself a favor and watch an old movie. You can rent it for chump change -- certainly -- at Amazon. It was produced in 1946, just after the war, the year of Trump's birth and a year before mine. It featured Dana Andrews, Myrna Loy, Frederic March, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo -- and, a very special guy in his acting debut -- Harold Russell. The title of the movie is "The Best Years of our Lives".

If you want to look for a character in the movie most like Donald Trump, his role is described as "Man in a bar" opposite the character Homer Parrish portrayed by Russell, which is one of several moving scenes. Among the others, is the scene towards the end with Dana Andrews alone in a B-17 junkyard, where the soundtrack really soars with dramatic effect.

I think you could track back through American cinema to see movies that have a lot to say about the people and issues of the times. "The Grapes of Wrath" is another one, and there's a movie which isn't even set in the US, but rather the Mexican state of Morelos, with a script by John Steinbeck whose book inspired the former movie. "Viva Zapata" features Marlon Brando in his third movie, with Jean Simpson, Joseph Wiseman, Anthony Quinn and several others.

The 1950s was a time I can only remember from childhood. Life was simpler, as were the people. And growing up "white" things looked a lot better than they should have, if you were a ten-year-old. "On the Waterfront" comes to mind, as does "Lonely Are the Brave" -- whose book author is buried in a place where we don't want any Wall. Of course, if I had been more accessible to certain films, I might have learned to appreciate "A Raisin In the Sun" -- which was pretty much a true story, and has a lot to teach about the better parts of the American character, in addition to some of the weaker sides we saw as underlying Rightie reactions to Obama.

 

[Texashiker]

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.

HIV is 99% a lifestyle disease.

There are a very small percentage of people who caught HIV through contaminated blood donations, contaminated needles... etc. There were even stories of patients catching HIV through oral surgeons tools that had not been properly sterilized. Rather than using a solution to sterilize tools, doctors offices are supposed to use an autoclave.

I never said HIV was punishment from GOD.

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.

Society must do more to stop women from walking away from marriages. Then again, womens rights groups would protest that.

Its as if some women are hell bent on destroying society, one family at a time.

If the government treated divorces like they treat diseases, there would be all kinds of investigations, congressional hearings.... to figure out why something like 80% divorces are filed by women. It is not just the divorce, but the long term effects it has on children.

You know the stats of children raised in broken homes, and it is heartbreaking.

 

[Jhhnn]

Society must do more to stop women from walking away from marriages. Then again, womens rights groups would protest that.

Its as if some women are hell bent on destroying society, one family at a time.

If the government treated divorces like they treat diseases, there would be all kinds of investigations, congressional hearings.... to figure out why something like 80% divorces are filed by women. It is not just the divorce, but the long term effects it has on children.

You know the stats of children raised in broken homes, and it is heartbreaking

Uppity goddamned Women!

 

[Lanyap]

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.

Sounds like you have a young liberal activist on your hands. Good luck. 🙂


Seriously, there has never been a time in America's history where everyone thought it was great then or now. OP's question revolves around the MAGA narrative and Trump's base who are generally white middle class baby boomers who grew up in the suburbs. Life was great to them in the 50s, 60s and 70s. That's what they want MAGA to bring back to them and it ain't gonna happen.

 

[Starbuck1975]

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.

And the Democrats of today are a pale shadow to FDR, sacrificing the New Deal for shareholder value.

 

[Jhhnn]

Sounds like you have a young liberal activist on your hands. Good luck. 🙂


Seriously, there has never been a time in America's history where everyone thought it was great then or now. OP's question revolves around the MAGA narrative and Trump's base who are generally white middle class baby boomers who grew up in the suburbs. Life was great to them in the 50s, 60s and 70s. That's what they want MAGA to bring back to them and it ain't gonna happen.

That was before the rise of trickle down Reaganomics & the looting of middle class prosperity built on the Principles of the New Deal from WW2 forward. Liberal Boomers understand that all too well while our conservative brethren haven't got a clue. They came to believe that Capitalism is a benevolent force when it's not that at all.

 

[Jhhnn]

And the Democrats of today are a pale shadow to FDR, sacrificing the New Deal for shareholder value.

It certainly was not Democrats who initiated that change in purpose or the public perceptions that enabled it. A lot of us saw it as folly from the outset. It was astroturfed straight out of the think tanks of the right directly into Reagan era policy. Anybody who stood in the way was an ebil soshulist.

 

[Texashiker]

Uppity goddamned Women!

Come back when your wife cheats, decides she wants a divorce, takes half, tells your children you do not love them, tells your children you were abusive to her (when you weren't}... etc.

In the end, she will try to take everything from you, even your friends.

 

[Texashiker]

And the Democrats of today are a pale shadow to FDR,

I have to disagree with you.

FDR was one step away from being full blown communist.

Modern Democrats are marching towards socailism. Chances are democrats will return to communism, but are taking the long way around with socialism.

 

[Jhhnn]

I have to disagree with you.

FDR was one step away from being full blown communist.

Modern Democrats are marching towards socailism. Chances are democrats will return to communism, but are taking the long way around with socialism.

This whole "Democrats are Commies!" thing is how you keep yourself frothed up, huh? Take a look at he world around you. It's what happens when we let the money people have their way with us too much.

 

[Texashiker]

It's what happens when we let the money people have their way with us too much.

I agree more must be done to curb the influence of money in our elections. I feel electing people like Alexandria Ocasio-Ortez is a good first step. We need more elected officals who will expose how money corrupts our government.

However, no form of government will ever be perfect. If we could remove the influence of money, it would be a large step in the right direction.

As for FDR:

Prohibiting the ownership of gold, rounding people up and sending them to camps.... etc. is a step in the wrong direction. Democrats would love to go back to the new deal to help abolish income inequality, but we have to be careful.

FDR put forth some great ideas, but he did some really bad stuff also.

Alexandria Ocasio-Ortez would be better off trying to end government corruption, and getting medicare for all passed than this new Green Deal she has. To fix anything first we have to get our house in order.

 

[Jhhnn]

I agree more must be done to curb the influence of money in our elections. I feel electing people like Alexandria Ocasio-Ortez is a good first step. We need more elected officals who will expose how money corrupts our government.

However, no form of government will ever be perfect. If we could remove the influence of money, it would be a large step in the right direction.

As for FDR:

Prohibiting the ownership of gold, rounding people up and sending them to camps.... etc. is a step in the wrong direction. Democrats would love to go back to the new deal to help abolish income inequality, but we have to be careful.

FDR put forth some great ideas, but he did some really bad stuff also.

Alexandria Ocasio-Ortez would be better off trying to end government corruption, and medicare for all than this new Green Deal she has. To fix anything first we have to get our house in order.

It's not just about money in politics but also about the prerogatives we allow for Capital holders in our economy. The de-industrialization of the Rust Belt would have been mostly unthinkable in the German way of looking at things, for example. In our way of looking at things, when Capital holders move on to greener pastures, we let them, leaving behind only a period of unemployment compensation for their former workers. And then we cut their taxes in the vain hope of luring the Capital back. Wash, rinse, repeat as the ownership class takes an ever larger piece of the pie. More automation. More consolidation. Fewer jobs. More profit.

You misunderstand entirely why the FDR admin bought all the gold. Under the Gold standard, speculators were hoarding the shit out of it, placing constraints on the treasury's ability to create money to replace the "money" that disappeared in the near collapse of banking. The early years of the Depression were extremely deflationary because of liquidity hoarding. When the Treasury bought up the gold they then devalued the dollar, thus allowing the creation of new money the economy needed.

 

[Muse]

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'd like to think you're right. I'm not as confident in this as I was after the last presidential election. I was profoundly disappointed. America still has had no female head of state. What other major country can you say that about? Not even Russia (Catherine the Great). China? Don't know, but I'm not willing to call them "major" yet. They have undergone such rapid change it's unclear who and what they will be in 50 years. Clearly, they aren't a democracy. America does not have universal health care, not on a par with the other developed nations. Everything that Trump says and does mortifies and embarrasses me, and that's an understatement. I can't stand the dude.

 

[Muse]

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.

This is certainly your song, congrats:

 

[Muse]

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.

Guess that explains why Bob Dylan (uh, Zimmerman then, I guess) got the hell out of Minnesota and went to NYC. Sounds like a terrible place to live at that time.

Me thinks of Fargo... yeah, the movie, but Fargo, MN is a real place. In the movie seemed pretty damned fucked up dumbass place. It is actually the Coen brother's stomping ground before they got the hell out.

 

[shortylickens]

Most of the people who push that notion america was Great are horrid racists, so I guess they are referring to the time when blacks "knew their place" and women stayed at home.

 

[bbhaag]

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!

Why are you only focusing on the negative aspects of Americas long and rich history? For every negative generalization you made about each decade one could easily find many positive aspects from each decade that have helped make America great.

It's a mindset man. You gotta remain positive in both mind and spirit. My in laws are close to your age and they are starting to say the same things as you. I noticed this started to happen shortly after President Trump was elected. Don't let the distractions of today's modern news media lead you down the road of negative thinking.

 

[Muse]

You don't have to call it "great". I'm wondering if our culture and values have fallen or risen since WWII. As of January 2017 or even the campaign leading to it, and as I've said in earlier posts, what was always there in the shadows of the American character is suddenly in center stage for all to see.

But I might suggest that you do yourself a favor and watch an old movie. You can rent it for chump change -- certainly -- at Amazon. It was produced in 1946, just after the war, the year of Trump's birth and a year before mine. It featured Dana Andrews, Myrna Loy, Frederic March, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo -- and, a very special guy in his acting debut -- Harold Russell. The title of the movie is "The Best Years of our Lives".

If you want to look for a character in the movie most like Donald Trump, his role is described as "Man in a bar" opposite the character Homer Parrish portrayed by Russell, which is one of several moving scenes. Among the others, is the scene towards the end with Dana Andrews alone in a B-17 junkyard, where the soundtrack really soars with dramatic effect.

I think you could track back through American cinema to see movies that have a lot to say about the people and issues of the times. "The Grapes of Wrath" is another one, and there's a movie which isn't even set in the US, but rather the Mexican state of Morelos, with a script by John Steinbeck whose book inspired the former movie. "Viva Zapata" features Marlon Brando in his third movie, with Jean Simpson, Joseph Wiseman, Anthony Quinn and several others.

The 1950s was a time I can only remember from childhood. Life was simpler, as were the people. And growing up "white" things looked a lot better than they should have, if you were a ten-year-old. "On the Waterfront" comes to mind, as does "Lonely Are the Brave" -- whose book author is buried in a place where we don't want any Wall. Of course, if I had been more accessible to certain films, I might have learned to appreciate "A Raisin In the Sun" -- which was pretty much a true story, and has a lot to teach about the better parts of the American character, in addition to some of the weaker sides we saw as underlying Rightie reactions to Obama.

I'm wondering if you got that idea about the shadows of the American character from Hunter S. Thompson, who stated, probably in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (from memory, and I'm paraphrasing here) that Richard Nixon's character personifies "all that is dark and venal in the American character." Quotation marks there because I think I do remember that phrase verbatim. I think we have a far better characterization at this juncture, being the mental midget egotist in the White House. That man is anti-science, dismissive, thoroughly disrespectful, the god-send (well, devil-send) of all prevaricators, everyone who prefers untruths, anti-truths to truth insofar as it's possible at all times. Yes, I think that such people exist and in great numbers in our very unsovereign nation.

That movie (The Best Years of Our Lives), I saw it in May 2006. Here's the little note I made to myself concerning it. First is the Rotten Tomatoes rating. It's highly regarded there:

Reviews Counted: 16
Fresh: 16 Rotten: 0
Average Rating: 8.8/10

My comments from 2006: "I thought of turning this off but stuck with it. It's pretty old and dated in a lot of ways. Sappy. But it did make me cry - it had definite tear jerker credentials. It was unpardonably corny and doubt that I'd want to see it again."

I think I've seen those other movies you mention except for Viva Zapata. I had a thing for Brando's directorial debut (did he direct others? No!), One Eyed Jacks, in which he starred. Brando was a superstar and he took the opportunity to cast himself in his own image in his own way in this movie. Just a swashbuckling southwestern eye-popper that grabs you unrelentingly.

 

[Veliko]

Come back when your wife cheats, decides she wants a divorce, takes half, tells your children you do not love them, tells your children you were abusive to her (when you weren't}... etc.

In the end, she will try to take everything from you, even your friends.

A very odd post.

You live in genuine fear that your wife will cheat on you... hence you wanting to return to the sexual repression of ye olde worlde.

 

[Muse]

Why are you only focusing on the negative aspects of Americas long and rich history? For every negative generalization you made about each decade one could easily find many positive aspects from each decade that have helped make America great.

It's a mindset man. You gotta remain positive in both mind and spirit. My in laws are close to your age and they are starting to say the same things as you. I noticed this started to happen shortly after President Trump was elected. Don't let the distractions of today's modern news media lead you down the road of negative thinking.

I focused on the negative aspects to counter the MAGA gestalt, which seems bogus to me. To counter that I figured I had to discount the notion that America enjoyed a period of greatness. By implication, Trump is saying we are no longer great and we need to return to greatness, a greatness we once had. Well, I say "when?" That's all. I'm not saying there aren't great things about America or that America can't be said to have done or created great things. I'm just saying MAGA is bogus. I'm not alone in that contention. I'm seeing, hearing it a lot. As a slogan, it's asinine and rather vulgar.

I'll find it a lot easier to not think negatively about America if Trump does not win a 2nd term, that's pretty for sure. I can't imagine that the Democratic Party is going to nominate someone nearly as repugnant as who the Republicans have come up with.

Look, for perspective on where I'm coming from: I live in a state (CA) that has virtually killed off the Republican Party. Yes, even the Republicans admit this. I don't know if we have any Republican congress representatives now, they were so clobbered in November. All state offices to my knowledge are NOT Republicans. Add to that the fact that I live in Berkeley. I scanned a sheet of party affiliations some years ago that was posted on the wall at my polling place as I stood in line and out of hundreds I don't think I saw more than 2 or so Republican affiliations.

 

[Veliko]

To truly MAGA, you need to decide:

When was America great? Which decade?
In what way(s) was it great?
What led to that greatness?
How would you replicate that greatness today?

Periods of dominance tend to be rare, fleeting, and temporary, and come about due to circumstances beyond that nation's control.

The post-WW2 era did indeed see America flourishing, but that's because it was the post-WW2 era. WW2 wasn't something that was actively pursued by American policymakers.

 

[Muse]

To truly MAGA, you need to decide:

When was America great? Which decade?
In what way(s) was it great?
What led to that greatness?
How would you replicate that greatness today?

Periods of dominance tend to be rare, fleeting, and temporary, and come about due to circumstances beyond that nation's control.

The post-WW2 era did indeed see America flourishing, but that's because it was the post-WW2 era. WW2 wasn't something that was actively pursued by American policymakers.

Yeah, this is my thinking.

Yes, America had a leg up after WW II, in large part because the bombs did not drop here. Also, we had the H bomb, talk about carrying a big stick! Sputnik was a whoopsie moment, let's go to the moon, was JFK's response, and putting the peddle to the metal to get satellites in orbit. TBH, I had no clue how useful satellites would be ... zero. But nowadays you never know what new country is joining the we-have-satellites-in-orbit club... um, or why.

 

[ivwshane]

A very odd post.

You live in genuine fear that your wife will cheat on you... hence you wanting to return to the sexual repression of ye olde worlde.

His wife did do all that and I can't blame her and I'm pretty sure he deserved everything he had coming to him. He's just that unaware of his own horrible personality.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I'm wondering if you got that idea about the shadows of the American character from Hunter S. Thompson, who stated, probably in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (from memory, and I'm paraphrasing here) that Richard Nixon's character personifies "all that is dark and venal in the American character." Quotation marks there because I think I do remember that phrase verbatim. I think we have a far better characterization at this juncture, being the mental midget egotist in the White House. That man is anti-science, dismissive, thoroughly disrespectful, the god-send (well, devil-send) of all prevaricators, everyone who prefers untruths, anti-truths to truth insofar as it's possible at all times. Yes, I think that such people exist and in great numbers in our very unsovereign nation.

That movie (The Best Years of Our Lives), I saw it in May 2006. Here's the little note I made to myself concerning it. First is the Rotten Tomatoes rating. It's highly regarded there:

Reviews Counted: 16
Fresh: 16 Rotten: 0
Average Rating: 8.8/10

My comments from 2006: "I thought of turning this off but stuck with it. It's pretty old and dated in a lot of ways. Sappy. But it did make me cry - it had definite tear jerker credentials. It was unpardonably corny and doubt that I'd want to see it again."

I think I've seen those other movies you mention except for Viva Zapata. I had a thing for Brando's directorial debut (did he direct others? No!), One Eyed Jacks, in which he starred. Brando was a superstar and he took the opportunity to cast himself in his own image in his own way in this movie. Just a swashbuckling southwestern eye-popper that grabs you unrelentingly.

"One Eyed Jacks" was released about the time of "A Raisin in the Sun", and in subtle ways, touches on the theme of racism, if only subliminally. I think this had been noted as a cornerstone of Brando's political and moral views. Six years later, film industry would release "Hombre" featuring Paul Newman, Martin Balsam, Richard Boone and again -- Frederic March. That film had a much stronger message on that topic, and some great script lines. But the westerns weren't depictions of the modern time periods of interest, even if they dealt with topics relevant to those periods. Given their popularity, one could say they still suggested things about the national spirit or values of the country.

You have a different opinion of "Best Years", but I think it reflected the post-war period, as much as I personally remember my childhood from the early 1950s. If the characters had parallels in real life -- which they did -- then "Man in a bar" shows that the Trumpian underbelly has always been with us.

After the war, we emerged as a world power, Europe was being rebuilt with help from the Marshall Plan, and the McCarthy Era had its villains as well as heroes like Edward R. Murrow. We forget, in celebration of our narcissistic sense of greatness, that the film industry had a world audience, and American influence in the world owed something to it. At all levels, the new role of America in the world reflected our own uncertain or unsure way of dealing with it. Were we "King of the Mountain"? Or were we "A Beacon in the night"? You'd have to poll Boomer-generation citizens from other countries.

But Trump has done real damage to American respect, standing and prestige. "Damage" almost seems like an understatement.