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Whether that community spirit can be rekindled or if our selfishness, hedonism, and obsession with consumption has extinguished it remains to be seen.
While I personally find the community spirit you speak of rather attractive, I doubt that most americans have any desire to go back there.
Well, as Ben Franklin said, "We can hang together or we can hang separately." One of our founding fathers understood quite well that indivdual needs and rights must be tempered with dedication to community and others.
Well, then Colorado Springs is the place I want to be. Lots of military retirees and veterans. I paraphrase this quote that I like a lot...
"A veteran, whether he or she is active duty, reserve, national guard, retired, or honorably discharged, is a person who, at one point in his or her life, voluntarily made out a blank check, payable to the United States of America, with a face amount up to and including his/her life itself."
Colorado Springs has enough of the kind of selfless people it might take to survive this sort of test.
Hollywood and Wall Street, on the other hand, do not.
Following Franklin D. Roosevelt’s election in 1932, the federal government began experimenting with solutions to the nationwide economic chaos. Some of these federal programs not only provided jobs, but improved the city and its hinterlands.
One of Roosevelt’s pet projects, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) hired young men for federal service and housed them in government barracks at such places as Fort Logan and Morrison. They worked to improve the outdoors, building trails, campgrounds and other amenities in Denver’s Mountain Parks, including a unique outdoor amphitheater at Red Rocks.
In post#256 Jazzlover makes a great point at the end of his post regarding hardship and sacrifice. I was talking to my Mom last week regarding much of what is brought up on this thread. She touched on one subject that I don't believe has been covered here, but I could be wrong. She talked about the early 40's during WW-II and gas rationing. Call it gas stamps, gas coupons, whatever, think about how you are alloted X amount of gas coupons and that's it. That's all you get. There ain't no more. Anyone ever think about that? Hardship? Yep! Sacrifice? It will be whether you like it or not. I would like to hope that could never happen again to this country. But it could.
In post#256 Jazzlover makes a great point at the end of his post regarding hardship and sacrifice. I was talking to my Mom last week regarding much of what is brought up on this thread. She touched on one subject that I don't believe has been covered here, but I could be wrong. She talked about the early 40's during WW-II and gas rationing. Call it gas stamps, gas coupons, whatever, think about how you are alloted X amount of gas coupons and that's it. That's all you get. There ain't no more. Anyone ever think about that? Hardship? Yep! Sacrifice? It will be whether you like it or not. I would like to hope that could never happen again to this country. But it could.
Actually all kinds of things were rationed during World War II. Tires, gasoline, meat, butter, sugar--just to name a few. This website talks about gasoline rationing: Certificates . Here is list of rationed items during WWII : Rationed Items
I probably am tuned in to that era more than some--partly because I am a historian and partly because my parents lived through it--the Depression and World War II both. Their story was not that much different from most Americans of the period, but it is a fascinating contrast to today. They proved that people can survive and even thrive through a period of real hardship. That, as much as anything, gives me some hope that we will persevere over what lies ahead, but I don't think it will be easy, pleasant, or something most any of us alive today are used to or would have expected as our future.
Parenthetically, as my moniker suggests, I am a lover of jazz music--the only true wholly American art form to emerge in our country's history. That idiom came to maturity in those, the most trying of times, and its art and craftsmanship has not been equaled or bested since.
Parenthetically, as my moniker suggests, I am a lover of jazz music--the only true wholly American art form to emerge in our country's history. That idiom came to maturity in those, the most trying of times, and its art and craftsmanship has not been equaled or bested since.
Slightly off thread perhaps, but as an old acoustic country blues lover, I would suggest that jazz in part evolved from that admitedly much simpler form. Blues in turn probably evolved from old "gospel" which came in great part from the plantation fields, and then from Africa. This, by the way, is the the only theory of evolution that I buy into...
My parents also came through those hard times. My mother was very poor even among other poor city immigrants (outdoor plumbing in Philadelphia?). My father came from an immigrant family of ten, all of whom finished high school. My father fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He also loved (still loves ) all the great swing music, especially Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman.
I think whatever is going on in the world forms an important backdrop to one's late teens/early 20s. My father just happened to have some of the greatest music and the most important war ever for his environment, and it wasn't even televised.
John McCain tried to tell Michigan that "the jobs aren't coming back" and got clocked, while lying hypocrite robot Romney promised they were coming back (but forgot about it when he dropped out as a loser). Obama has used the word "sacrifice" a couple of times, slipped it in there. After 9/11, Bush told people to... go shopping.
If we weren't so busy kissing Saudi butt, a lot of thing wouldn't have happened and would go a lot smoother. And the time is coming- I agree with several of the other, better-spoken posters. Not just for Colorado.
If we weren't so busy kissing Saudi butt, a lot of thing wouldn't have happened and would go a lot smoother..
First step is to go nuclear for power as Europe has done. Our environmentalists will have to compromise on this one. Nuclear can run desal plants to ease the water crisis. We have pretty much given away our manufacturing base, but we still have agricultural capacity that is the world's envy (if we have water...). With combinations of tidal, geothermal, wind, solar and coal we can tell the Saudis "maasalama" ("bye-bye") but our big oil corps will have to stand down from their obstructionist positions. It can be done,but not without stepping on some powerful toes. We will also have to start kissing up to the countries with a lot of uranium such as Australia ("G'day mate!"). Are we up to it?
Here's an uplifting read...start about halfway down where the all-caps sentence is...a bit over the top a la Kunstler, but you gotta wonder...there ARE those folks out there who will crack...
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