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Not to mention the production of those sources weren't diverse either.
1950: TV(15 minutes of news), local radio, and local newpaper, National Geographic.
Today: TV(with 30-60 minutes of news, and more than once a day), National Geographic(with covers even more things than ever) satellite radio, satellite TV, Cable TV, newspaper, internet(newspaper online, facebook, blogger, youtube, yahoo, city-data).
I can post something on youtube about a certain subject, and people as far away as Japan can listen. Youtube videos other than mine will go even more viral. The internet allows for more information to travel faster, so things like violence will be heard of, from another corner of the globe.
It's interesting that the conventions each selected ten 'internet' news reps to report along with the pros. Mostly they were people who started with blogs and worked up from that to being well enough known to get a chair with the big boys. That has been the biggest difference in the world since the rise of the internet. Information. The introduction of the printing press was revolutionary because it led to the easy printing of book, and mass distribution of them. It wasn't that people didn't want to learn to read but there were not many books. Now their was. Not only was there a great leap in literacy, but in thought and new ideas and how we all saw the world.
Now, an event across the world can be known of and already being discussed literally in minutes. That would have been unthinkable. What is unthinkable to us is that battles were fought after wars were over since communicataions took so long.
It's also doing things to us which many not in the long (or even short) run be good but that is the nature of change, and there is never a single answer about it.
Dude, it isn't just about the realities of blacks, it is the realities of middle America. I was second oldest of six kids, a family of eight. We lived in a semi rural outer belt suburb and my father was THE beardwinner, working in a metal forming plant. One day, while my dad worked piece work on his punch press, a tiny piece of scrap dropped onto the next blank. Not wanting to ruin a blank my dad brushed the piece of scrap off the blank. At the same time he triggered the machine with his foot and three and a half of his fingers disappeared.
Working piece work instead of hourly so he could earn more for his family. Working without "optional" safety harnesses becuz they slowed him down. Stepping on the trigger becuz his body and mind were conditioned to do so. In that moment we went from a middle class family striving for that dream, to a dirty poor family with next to nothing. I was forced to work, paper routes, when I was very young. I'm not sure what workers comp finally paid us, but we never had anything.
We were lucky, in that we held the home, managing to pay the morgage every month. But things like clothes and food were often secondary.
It took years for my dad to get back to gainful employment, surgeries, skin grafts, phantom pain (he still "feels" his whole hand), learning a new trade, learning to be left handed.
The whole problem with these ppl dwelling in the past is the aren't dealing with the realities of the time.
The same things go on today. Work place injuries happen all the time. A machine shop is a dangerous place to work. Maybe they could go with robots---it doesn't matter if they get hurt and some shops have done just that.
Many weren't even aware or didn't notice "inequity" and bigoty that was common place back then. But they see things they don't like in today's world and want to go back to a time when those things, like gays, didn't exist. What they're really hoping for is a return to open racism, bigotry, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, pay equality and a time when hitting your wife and public displays of hate against your fellow man was tolerated and even accepted.
So you think today is so much better? I don't think we need to go back at all for these things to be happening.
There is nothing - NOTHING - that anyone could offer me that would entice me to return to the 50s. I loved growing up in the 50s, but I was a child then and was ignorant. I am an adult now (an old one, at that) and am acutely aware of the inequities that existed for everyone except white males during the halcyon 50s. Inequities that no one acknowledged, much less attempted to fix. Add to that the primitive technology and yet to be discovered medical treatments for many diseases, and it makes me scratch my head in wonder at anyone who longs for the "good ol' days."
The same things go on today. Work place injuries happen all the time. A machine shop is a dangerous place to work. Maybe they could go with robots---it doesn't matter if they get hurt and some shops have done just that.
Yes, workplace injuries still happen, but there are better safety practices in effect today.
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Originally Posted by janelle144
So you think today is so much better? I don't think we need to go back at all for these things to be happening.
Yes, today is better for those issues. Not perfect, but a heck of a lot better.
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Originally Posted by janelle144
I never heard of AIDS back then though.
But people were terrified of polio, which was a raging epidemic in the early 1950s.
I do know of one difference about then and now. My aunt worked at an airplane plant in the photography department. She was not paid as much as the men who worked with her. This was just when feminism was coming of age. I asked her why she didn't mind being paid less than the men, it wasn't right. She thought I was crazy. She said those men have families to support, she was single.
If you grew up in the era that put families first and the bread winner first it would never occur to you that it was unfair if the man of the household was paid better. I know it's a quaint way of thinking now but it had to do with the good of society is all I know.
I tried to make her see how "unfair" it was but she was almost insulted with the idea.
Again: all those nice 50's housewives taking diet pills that were nothing but speed. And people were actually smoking pot in the 50's. It's true. All the clubs on Sunset that your family apparently wouldn't have thought of visiting, were full of people sneaking out to take hit on a joint. Or use cocaine.
"Some get a kick from cocaine." (Cole Porter) Sinatra recorded it in 1953 and he wasn't singing about Coca Cola.
It shouldn't be classified as an "epidemic." Certainly not compared to the '60s and later.
How do you know how many housewives were taking diet pills? My mom never took that. As far as I know, neither did my 7 aunts.
And again, the general public consuming pot was very uncommon in the '50s.
When I was growing up, an elderly neighbor talked about working as a young home economist in a rural area of Canada in the 1930s. When she got married, she was forced to quit her job. The thinking of the time was that she had a husband to support her so the job should go to someone who wasn't married.
By the way, her husband-to-be worked in a bank. He had to get his bank manager's permission to get married.
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It's true. All the clubs on Sunset that your family apparently wouldn't have thought of visiting, were full of people sneaking out to take hit on a joint. Or use cocaine.
