ping
“Thirty years ago, the old deal that held US society together started to unwind, with social cohesion sacrificed to greed...”
Started off with a bang...then saw the word “greed”.
Error, error.
Earth to Guardian dolts, the word “greed” should be replaced with the word “progressives”.
And don’t be smug, we’re just following you folks. You’ll have your war with Islam and Socialism sooner than we.
Roosevelt Republic?
History rewrites itself once again.
They have it exactly backwards.
If this is what they now believe in England, no wonder Great Britain is broke after being an astounding empire that the sun never sat upon.
Nah. Wasn’t ‘78.
It was ‘65, when the Kennedy crap really started to kick in.
The things they implemented were just cultural Marxist initiatives; the economic Marxism was implemented in the ‘30s by Roosevelt.
The 70’s was when it all started to bear fruit (rotten fruit, but fruit nonetheless). The 80’s was just a bump in the road, as the WWII generation tried to throw a rock on the track to Hell.
But they’re lives are finite, and they are almost gone now.
Been downhill ever since. And pouring tens of millions of desperate foreigners into the country is just gas on the fire.
Which is intentional.
Abortion and identity politics, and those who gain their power from them, have ruined the country. Plain and simple.
Evidently, nothing happened in America between Carter and Obama
Why do these know-nothings in the UK feel they are able to opine about American history when in fact the material they present is rubbish?
> “In or around 1978, America’s character changed. For almost half a century, the United States had been a relatively egalitarian, secure, middle-class democracy, with structures in place that supported the aspirations of ordinary people.”
First off in 1978, America was facing its second oil crisis in 5 years leaving long lines at the pump. Interest rates were 18% with double digit inflation and high unemployment. This was Carter’s ‘Malaise’ and certainly Americans did not feel secure in any sense egalitarian or otherwise.
Secondly, the American government is not a democracy! Its elections are democratic but governance is carried out under a republican form of government.
It's interesting that the Guardian would peg the start at that time.
-PJ
American society didn’t unravel, democrats picked
it to pieces “improving” it.
An awful lot of pure drivel in that article.
Americas down fall can be easily traced....
1. The 19th amendment.
2. Group right’s becoming more important that Right’s of the Individual.
3. Removal of Prayer from the public schools.
4. Abortion legalized.
Yep...that pretty much covers it.
The above is the price my children for equality and surrendering the right to govern. At least you can gaze into your new masters shiny black face and sigh how wonderful you are.
Karl Marx HATED the middle class and the Capitalist system.
So here we sit in 2013, implementing Marxist idea after Marxist idea after Marxist idea - and the people who bring us this stuff sit in mystified wonder at where the middle class went.
This would be like the Nazis acting shocked that the Jewish population is disappearing...
Multiculturalism killed the USA. Everything else is a footnote.
The nations immigrant population (legal and illegal) reached 40 million in 2010, the highest number in our history. The U.S. immigrant population has doubled since 1990, nearly tripled since 1980, and quadrupled since 1970, when it stood at 9.7 million. Of the 40 million immigrants in the country in 2010, 13.9 million arrived in 2000 or later making it the highest decade of immigration in American history, even though there was a net loss of jobs during the decade.
Growth in the immigrant population has primarily been driven by high levels of legal immigration. Roughly three-fourths of immigrants in the country are here legally. With nearly 12 million immigrants, Mexico was by far the top immigrant-sending country, accounting for 29 percent of all immigrants and 29 percent of growth in the immigrant population from 2000 to 2010. The median age of immigrants in 2010 was 41.4 compared to 35.9 for natives.
We are not the same country we were 30 years ago. We are importing millions of uneducated, unskilled people--87% of whom are minorities as defined by the USG. We are becoming Balkanized along racial, ethnic, and linguistic lines. Tribal politics is the result.
Although well-intended, the Civil Rights Act was the first knife in Uncle Sam’s back. It created ‘protected classes’ where we were no longer Americans, only ‘groups’. Next came the women’s liberation movement, led by man-hater lesbians such as Bella Abzug and Gloria Steinem. The family unit became broken, females assumed the male role resulting in broken marriages. The divorce rate skyrocketed and perhaps worst of all, boys became emasculated without a father in the house. Case and point, Barack Hussein 0bama. He is the embodiment of how feminism destroyed America. He is not a man. He throws like a girl. He is obsessed with style over substance. He is a celebrity, not a leader.
Interesting that they admit our society has unraveled. They are far off on the reasons for it. The main reason as I see it can be summed up in 1 word- Liberalism. And the tools of liberalism used to dismantle the greatest society that ever existed ie multiculturalism, feminism, govt dependency, affirmative action, moral decay, and contempt for the constitution.
I'll take 'will-to-power driven monsters' for $50, Alex.
Hindsight is always 20/20 vision. Except distorted by nostalgia, the current agenda, ignorance of history or current events, etc. In other words, the “good old days” were not seen as particularly good at the time.
The author bemoans the loss of American industrialism, but America moved away from industrialism because we were no longer competitive, and we didn’t want the pollution and other stuff that came with it. Who wants to do hard work in a steel mill when you can get paid almost as much, or more, for a desk job?
Charles Bronson was raised to be a coal miner, until he discovered that acting was where it’s at. At least compared to coal mining.
And a lot of today’s asocial or antisocial behavior was also voluntary. Kids were and are raised to *not* hang out with each other. Like the kids on South Park, your “friends” are just the kids you meet at the bus stop.
When you grow up, you want to get a home, get married, have kids, etc. You do not give two hoots *where* this is, or if any of your friends will live nearby. Zero “community”.