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Sharing bedrooms..
Rarely going out to restaurants, emphasis upon "rarely"..
The station wagon as the family car...
Largely stay-at -home mothers..
Hand-me down clothing, if appropriate..
To save some money, drinking "powdered milk"
Families with 5-6-7 children..
Parents with VERY similar theories of raising children..
Hearing the warning "Wait until your father comes home"!
Eating at the same time every night...
If you're still, at this date, defending George Bush, then you are too far gone to be saved.
Take it to another forum.
I wasnt a big fan of Bush to be honest, but after this bonehead we currently have in office? Bush seems like a saint. Funny thing is, there's a lot of people out there (including people who voted for Obama) who prefer to have Bush back in office according to a recent poll.
We don't worry about our kids being paralyzed for life by polio anymore.
Also it's still possible for many families to live on a single income. Just own one car (or less), live in a tiny house, own one tv without cable. Never take a vacation farther than the local state park. Don't use air conditioning. Don't buy clothes, make them at home. Don't eat out ever. Don't expect your kids will go to college.
If we had health insurance that only covered treatments available 40 years ago, it would be a lot cheaper too. It would pay for removing your appendix, a few basic antibiotics, maybe pap smears and physicals. If you had a heart attack, you would get bed rest and not much else. Cancer? Go home and die. Need an organ transplant? Sorry.
You make good points, but not many people would want to live that way today, especially with no air conditioning and making your own clothes. Who has time for that today. We also expect that most of our kids get more than a high school education and most jobs require it. We can't really go back to that.
Location: The Greatest city on Earth: City of Atlanta Proper
8,486 posts, read 15,002,372 times
Reputation: 7333
Quote:
Originally Posted by eek
uh...lol at debatable.
i like that i don't have to drink out of a colored water fountain.
i like that i am not forced to sit at the back of a bus.
i like that i don't have to walk miles and miles because my family can't afford a car ("most families had a car"...yeah, ok...think about the whole and not just one race, here...)
i like not being spit on, called out of my name to my face (because some ppl still think it but won't say it nowadays)
i like chillin with my friends that are not the same race as i am without anybody worrying about ppl looking at us "funny," or trying to kill us
i like that my mom was nobody's maid
etc. etc.
my grandmother was a maid for awhile and my mom drank out of a colored water fountain. hell no i wouldn't take the 50's or 60's over now. are you crazy??
funny story. this lady asked my mom where her tail was back then.
in the 40's, my grandmother and her friend went to a store and were thirsty. her friend got the idea of dranking out of the white water fountain. so they did. someone caught them and yelled at them. her friend told that person to kiss her ...well, you know. and they ran the hell outta there.
its funny now but very gutsy then. its just plain stupid that we, we meaning americans, were that dumb...were stupid enough to let race divide us. it still does but not so much as it did then.
prominent black leaders were killed trying to get equal rights for all. ppl were lynched, beaten, hang from trees, terrorized for us to live the way we live now.
lol at working in a factory. screw that. while other ppl owned businesses that we worked in for much less? na son.
i like ownership. even if i'm likely to make less than my counterparts due to my race, at least it is much higher than it used to be and at least i have more opportunties to get ahead and one day own my own business than i would have back then.
again, hell no to the 50's and 60's. i'm good.
+1 million
Might I also add...
-I can attend any university I like
-I can live in any neighborhood I like
-I won't be called "boy" by anyone else but my father
-I won't be killed for just looking at an attractive white woman, not to mention dating, marrying, having kids with one
-I can get any job I am qualified for
-I am allowed to have an opinion
This idealized picture of the 1950s only comes from the young or the dumb or the willfully ignorant. As bad as it sounds, the 1950s were only good for white protestant (or those that could pass) men and ignorant white women. For blacks, latinos, asians, jews, catholics, european immigrants, the mentally/physically disabled, and white women it was craptastic time. They were expected to shut up and stay in their place.
Granted, not all white men liked this system and many fought against it during the Civil Rights era, but to think that the quality of life was great for anyone other than white men or white women who weren't uppity....you need to go back and redo history class.
-I can attend any university I like
-I can live in any neighborhood I like
-I won't be called "boy" by anyone else but my father
-I won't be killed for just looking at an attractive white woman, not to mention dating, marrying, having kids with one
-I can get any job I am qualified for
-I am allowed to have an opinion
This idealized picture of the 1950s only comes from the young or the dumb or the willfully ignorant. As bad as it sounds, the 1950s were only good for white protestant (or those that could pass) men and ignorant white women. For blacks, latinos, asians, jews, catholics, european immigrants, the mentally/physically disabled, and white women it was craptastic time. They were expected to shut up and stay in their place.
Granted, not all white men liked this system and many fought against it during the Civil Rights era, but to think that the quality of life was great for anyone other than white men or white women who weren't uppity....you need to go back and redo history class.
Overall I would say people are more open minded and accepting of those who are different from them these days. Think of how gays and lesbians had to hide in the closet.
You guys crack me up. You look at tv shows and movies and the way that they portray the 50s and 60s and truly believe that's how things were. That's not even how things were for white people and that's who we see most often portrayed.
The fact of the matter is that one income households were normal only in the white community as minorities (yes, blacks but also any other minorities) generally had two income households. Black women were generally maids even when their husbands worked because they were paid so much lower than whites. Immigrants generally had two income households or the entire family would work at one business much like they do today.
White people, even poor ones, had a sense of "pride" that kept them from having two income households but, in the case of the poor, that is what kept them poor.
The fact of the matter is that, as much as the 50s and 60s are idolized in our (American) culture, there were lots of major things wrong underneath that sparkling surface that were brought to light in later generations. Men had mistresses, wives were medicated into a stupor in order to be kept in line and, when that didn't work, they were lobotomized. Racism was rampant and not just against black people but against every type of immigrant that had a darker hue than whites and against anyone who wasn't christian. Even christians were prejudiced against each other based on their denomination.
Let's not forget that people in general were walking around with the stress brought about by the cold war and the constant threat of nuclear war. The U.S. in the 50s had McArtheism, racism, censorship, xenophobia, alcoholism and drug abuse but, as long as you didn't disturb the status quo (which was designed to benefit rich, white men) then these things were okay to live with.
The 60s were pretty much the same. The only difference was in the second half when people started to rebel.
There is affordable housing nowadays, folks, keep that in mind. There are jobs out there nowadays folks, keep that in mind. Education is still available to everyone and higher education is more accessable today that it was in the 50s and 60s for EVERYONE. If you want to live in a one income household were the woman stays at home with the children in a neighborhood with little crime (because, let's face it, there is always crime) then all you have to do is make sure that you make it past high school without getting a woman pregnant or getting yourself pregnant if you're a woman then making it through college and getting a degree. It may not be as easy for some of us as it is for others but that's the great thing about this country; we all have that opportunity.
In the 50s and 60s that opportunity was little more than a false promise if you weren't white and middle class. Nowadays, that promise is achievable by anyone who is smart enough to make the right choices.
By the way, I'm a blue collar worker who lives in a 3 bedroom house in a neighborhood with little crime. We know at least all our immediate neighbors (the ones on either side and accross the street). All the neighbors around here go walking in the morning and at night and we all say hello to each other. I DO NOT live in a gated community and my wife and I are BARELY middle class. We also don't have bachelor degrees (though I am working on mine). In my house, my wife does all the cooking, we wash our dishes by hand (well, I do the dishes for the most part so I wash them by hand) and most of our clothes hang dry since it's not safe to dry them in the dryer. We go out every weekend and spend time with family and friends as well as with each other every day after we both get home from work.
We both come from families that always had two working parents (even in El Salvador, my mother worked as a teacher) and we both grew up in rough neighborhoods here in CA and worked our way out of them. Could we have done that in the 50s or 60s? Maybe, but it sure would have been a lot harder. Hell, just being an "interracial" couple would have been a great obsticle back then.
Are you freakin jokin? "Warmongering"? I guess youre forgetting about Obama increasing troops in Afghanistan?
You started off good...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve-o
Unlike Obama, Bush was a MAN of his word, not a cowardly, communistic weakling hiding behind a teleprompter, running our country into debt so far that our grandchildren's grandchildren will be paying off America's deficit.
Obama is, hands down, the worst president this nation has seen, and possibly will ever see. Take your blinders off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
...but then you lost me. If anything, the Obama presidency is essentially Bush's third term. Obama has continued all of Bush's failed policies, he's just rebranded them to make them more palatable to the mainstream.
I was thinking, back in the 50's when these types of discussions came up I'm sure 50's people would have said "Oh yes, contrary to what you think the 1950's are currently the best time in history because we have all this prosperity, hopes and dreams with the marvels of atomic technology, the 40s were bad because of that horrible World War and the 30s were just as bad because of that Depression and don't get us started with those 20s and that other World War!".
In 40-50 years time I bet people will say about my generation, "Your generation voted for Obama? But he was such a lackey and inexperienced, oh and that Katrina you people could have done better, is it because you early 21st century people were racist against blacks? And what about that 9/11 wasn't that just horrible for you grandpa? What do you think Great-Grampa was doing at that time?"
You make good points, but not many people would want to live that way today, especially with no air conditioning and making your own clothes. Who has time for that today. We also expect that most of our kids get more than a high school education and most jobs require it. We can't really go back to that.
The standards of today are unrealistic and unsustainable. Not everyone can get a college education. Even if they're fortunate enough to earn a degree, there's still a limited number of professional jobs to be had. We can't all be stock brokers or brain surgeons, just like we can't all be waitresses or work in call-centers. There needs to be a middle ground, and that void used to be filled by manufacturing.
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