Posted on 02/19/2007 1:08:48 PM PST by Coleus
Great site for taking a step back in time: http://www.backwhen.com
Remember when....
You had to depend on Walter Cronkite for your news
Life expectancy was 65, not 80
The Soviet Union had missles pointed at us
You had to make calls from a public phone when away from home
The main mode of cross-country transportation was a train, which took a week, not an afternoon.
While being a thoroughly modern person, I also consider myself pretty objective. Modernity is convenience, speed, sex (and more sex), lots of choices and longer life. Mid-century America was patriotism (love of both the country and the place where you were born and raised.),large, strong extended families, respect, standards of behavior, and, for children, the joy of the relatively innocent discovery of the adult world growing up. Your choice.
I don't listen to the rap stations so I can't speak to the lyrics of todays rap. However, there is plenty of good music being made today and thanks to satellite radio, I have nearly 100 stations of commercial-free music to listen to and yes, some of the stations are dedicated to the oldtime music like Sinatra and Nat King Cole.
Directions can still be gotten from gas station attendants but with navigation systems built into cars and the ability to download driving maps off the Internet, why is it even necessary?
Who cares about going to ballgames when you can TIVO the game and watch it at your own pace in your own home. Try doing that back in the good old 1950s!
1. A cowboy never takes unfair advantage, even of an enemy.
2. A cowboy never betrays a trust.
3. A cowboy always tells the truth.
4. A cowboy is kind to small children, to old folks, and to animals.
5. A cowboy is free from racial and religious prejudice.
6. A cowboy is always helpful, and when anyone's in trouble, he lends a hand.
7. A cowboy is a good worker.
8. A cowboy is clean about his person, and in thoughts, word, and deed.
9. A cowboy respects womanhood, his parents, and the laws of his country.
10. A cowboy is a patriot.
"The gas pump jockey could show you to your destination because he knew the area inside out and backwards.'
Yes, but just how useful was, "You go down the road a ways and turn left where the old schoolhouse used to be."?
The fall of civiliztion began with Joe Namath's $400,000 contract with the New York Jets in 1965.
WHOA!! Your mom was screwing the Kirby salesman?? LOL!
Back in the day having a child out of wedlock was, well, probably pretty much the end of living where ever you lived. Even for the "lower" classes like my family, at least in the south.
And then it seemed like overnight it was just another "lifestyle choice". I never saw it coming, it's like I woke up one day and a switch had been flipped.
It still seems weird to me.
---------------------------------------------
Classy. Gotta love those guys with the bad taste to write anonymously that which would get them knocked on their ass in real life.
That's right; at a time when his society was over two hundred years old and and in decline.
Why don't you make yourself useful and guard the Texas-Mexico border or something?
Good points, SA76.
IMO, here's the last 50 years in a nutshell. A steady stream of lefty politicians who have brought to pass the Commie dream:
Congressional Record--Appendix, pp. A34-A35
January 10, 1963
Current Communist Goals
EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Thursday, January 10, 1963
Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is
an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently
published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of
alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.
At Mrs. Nordman's request, I include in the RECORD, under
unanimous consent, the following "Current Communist Goals," which
she identifies as an excerpt from "The Naked Communist," by Cleon
Skousen:
[From "The Naked Communist," by W. Cleon Skousen]
CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic
war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic
war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States
would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist
affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for
war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist
domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of
Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free
elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United
States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in
progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is
rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with
its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders
believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by
Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as
they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American
institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for
socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum.
Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or
organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments,
editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of
artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to
"eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute
shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to
promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them
"censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting
pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures,
radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal,
natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social"
religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual
maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the
schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of
church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate,
old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to
cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish
aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching
of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the
"big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the
Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over
any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs,
mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation
of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social
agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which
no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as
a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose
Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and
easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative
influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding
of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are
legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and
special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to
solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are
ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot
prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic
problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and
individuals alike.
Exposing your bullshit is making myself useful.
I agree. For example, you could get service for you car almost anywhere because cars 50 years ago were much less reliable than today's, and also more easily repairable with general knowledge and common tools. Even the tires of 50 years ago were much less durable than modern ones. I can count the number of flats I've had in about a million miles of driving on one hand.
That's not to say that many things have changed for worse, however, even since I was a youngster in the 70s.
Well, to give you a bit of doggerel,
It was good,
and bad
but it was all we had...
I remember never locking the house- and Dad's Browning autoloader 16 he kept near had something to do with that.
I also took my hunting rifles & shotguns to grade school for show & tell.
One car-
One telephone-
One man worked one job, to support one family-
Collecting refillable Coke bottles for pin money- 25 cents bought lunch-
"White" and "Colored" entrances- and that offended lots of people even then, including myself-
Half-round TV tubes, but a radio in every room people gathered- that was the fast way for news-
Only knew one divorced couple- the local scandal for years-
Rapists got the electric chair, and I'm fairly sure child molesters did too- that was never talked about, though-
It was different, and slower. Not all good- dental work was so agonizing lots of people did without-
A fifty-year old man was old, old- although a few made their 80's and 90's, they were exceptional-
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