How did the 70s get framed as the ultimate bad time?

[cthulu2016]

...how did the 70s get framed as the ultimate bad time? For sure they weren’t good — but the really bad times for ordinary working families were the big recessions, which took place under Reagan, to some extent under Bush I, and above all after the financial crisis. Think about how weird it is, given this history, for people in 2010 or 2011, amid the wreckage, to be saying “Watch out — if we’re not careful this could turn into the seventies!” (cue ominous soundtrack).



But there were some people for whom the 70s really were the worst of times — namely, owners of financial assets. Here’s the ratio of financial assets held by households to GDP versus the core inflation rate:



And who cares a lot about financial assets, not so much about labor income? The 0.1 percent, who according to the Piketty-Saez database “only” get about 4 percent of total wages but have more than 20 percent of the wealth and surely a larger share of financial assets...

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/oligarchy-and-monetary-policy/

[Nye Bevan]

1. Mostly because of the awful fashions.

[PasadenaTrudy]

5. I grew up next door to Robert Reed

In the 60s and 70s. Oh the parties that were thrown at his estate!

[Nye Bevan]

6. Wow!

I can only imagine!

[wheniwasincongress]

49. What were the craziest and greatest things you saw?

And what was he like?

[tridim]

17. You know, the more retrospective I get about the 70's...

The less awful the fashions look to me. IMO 80's stuff was much more poorly designed.

I've seen some clothes on Brady Bunch reruns that I'd wear today, but wouldn't have dreamed of wearing in the 80's.

[pipi_k]

18. Nothing

wrong with the fashions back then!!

[napkinz]

21. I'd rather watch this than American Idol ...

[BuelahWitch]

24. Also better than the Kartrashians!

[Nye Bevan]

25. Eve Plumb must absolutely kick herself for declining to participate

every time she sees footage of this wonderful show.

[napkinz]

63. she did come back to do "A Very Brady Christmas" in 1988

But Susan Olsen (Cindy) passed on that one.

[napkinz]

78. oops, replied to wrong person

edit

[tridim]

46. That's just about the sparkliest thing I've ever seen.

[aikoaiko]

77. Is that a Jan replacement or did she just grow up?

[napkinz]

80. Geri Reischl played Jan

[aikoaiko]

84. I think it was Eve Plumb that I crushed on as a little boy.

[IMG][/IMG]

[napkinz]

90. :)

[BeyondGeography]

99. Janghazi!

Some funny stuff right there.

[Skittles]

97. is it me or are Greg and Marcia twerking at 4:45?

[UncleYoder]

2. One word.

Disco.

[hobbit709]

4. Beat me to it

[Kelvin Mace]

8. Damn!

your quick.

[pipi_k]

22. Guilty admission...

I love that movie...

and this, IMO, is one of the best scenes:

And, at the end, when he's riding on the subway to Stephanie's apartment and they come to an understanding of their relationship...

[Kelvin Mace]

32. OK, if I we are going to be confessing stuff

I liked ABBA, and I had a couple of Partridge Family albums (and still do).

Speaking of the latter, I heard this Eurovision song in 2010 and thought they had been reincarnated (well, Shirley Jones, David Cassidy and the studio musicians in any case). This song was Cyprus' entry into the contest:

[unblock]

11. i was never a fan of disco, but people malign it as if no decade since had any crap music

[Arugula Latte]

19. There was a lot of racist and anti-gay sentiment in the whole "disco sucks!" thing.

Yeah, a lot of disco music was bad, but there were also a lot of great dance songs that came out. The vehement hate thrown at all disco was way out of proportion, and a lot of that was coming from bigots who didn't like it that women, African Americans, and "queers" were thriving and enjoying themselves creating music and dancing to it at clubs and discos. And then compare it with the horrible "hair band" rock genre that followed in the 80s -- talk about bad music, but it was bad music that didn't get a fraction of the hate that disco did.

[AngryAmish]

23. What you seem to miss is that disco, indeed, did suck.

Gay people were completely off the radar of me and my disco-hating peers. For example no one got The Village People joke. And black folks were fully embraced by white kids, from Stevie Wonder to Jimi Hendricks etc. Heck Charley Pride sang country hits.

This after the fact demonization of disco's opponents is extremely problematic and bigoted.

In fact the first openly gay person in Chicago media was Dan Fields, the traffic guy for Steve Dahl, the dj who coined the term "disco sucks" and thought up Disco Demolition Night.

[Arugula Latte]

42. A lot of it sucked, but like I said, there were also some good dance tunes that came out of it.

I think the hair metal sucked like a black hole and country music sucks mightily (and I grew up being forced to listen to it back when it wasn't nearly as horrible as it is now) but I don't see people forming a mass "Country Sucks!" campaign. It was just odd that that was the music that got people all riled up. I mean, okay, you hate disco, so don't listen to it and don't go to clubs. Why make such a huge movement out of it? Part of the answer, I think, is that disco represented "the other" to a lot (obviously not all) young, straight white rocker guys.

[MicaelS]

52. The people who thought "Disco Sucked" were

Rockers who hated it because it got the attention that they felt was due only to Rock. They saw Disco as a threat to their beloved Rock.

I was 20 back in 1977, and love every minute of Disco. Went to clubs, danced, bought albums, bought tickets for the Bee Gees. Had a great time.

In fact I bought the boxed set of the Bee Gees a while back, and listen to it often.

Asked some people back then why Disco sucked, and got two answers "Because it does". "Because it's not rock."

And what came after Disco? Punk, and IMO, that really did suck.

[nilesobek]

92. The Bee Gees made great love songs, so disco really didn't suck.

[AgingAmerican]

95. Disco sucked because it was cheezy

But so was 70s buttrock...

[BeyondGeography]

72. Rock became hopelessly bloated and fast in the 70s

By 1975, the best bands were strung out on fame and everything that comes along with it and most of them were English anyway.

Sticky Fingers and Who's Next were the peak for the Stones and The Who and that was 1971. Zeppelin was pretty much done after the first four albums (1971 as well). Pink Floyd gave us The Wall in the latter part of the decade but their best work was done pre-75 a well. Nothing new and great came out of America until Springsteen in 1975 (whose Born to Run tells you everything you needed to know about where the 70s was headed socially...every man for himself).

Disco made me crazy as well because I was a die-hard rock fan but, looking back, the door was wide open for any kind of unchallenging dance music to fill the void created by music that was becoming increasingly dense (lyrics that were the opposite of catchy), dull (another 25-minute John Bonham drum solo, please) and sexless (beat? what beat?).

[Cirque du So-What]

93. What about The Cars?

Talking Heads? The Ramones? The Pretenders? Elvis Costello? These bands, among others, laid the groundwork for the 'New Wave' bands of the 80s and 'Alternative' rock which came about in the 90s. All those bands were like a breath of fresh air in the Disco era and the 'hair band' fad that followed.

[BeyondGeography]

98. That was the rock reaction to rock bloat...and it was great, too

Those bands gave millions of kids who didn't like disco something to dance to later in the decade. Punk as well. In a detectable way, those bands respected what disco had brought to the party; music that got people off their butts.

Don't get me defending disco now...I was just responding to the thought that disco ruined the 70s.

[deutsey]

74. Not a huge fan of disco here, but I still love a few of the Bee Gees' songs

and some of the other songs on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.

Same with KC and the Sunshine Band.

[joeybee12]

88. In the history of music, there is Bach, Beethoven...and then Donna Summer

What people who say disco sucked don't realize is that it's still there...it's just called dance music, and disco influenced pop music of today far more than anyone is willing to admit!

The clothes of the disco era did suck, but not the music.

[amandabeech]

111. I have a good friend who was in a group of folks from w. Michigan

who drove down for that doubleheader. I sincerely wish that I had been there with them, but I was in grad school on the east coast when it happened.

The old Comiskey was an interesting place, but they outdid themselves with a bonfire of burning vinyl in the outfield. The forfeit to my Tigers was only gravy on those potatoes.

I thought that disco was okay to dance to, but it didn't wear well.

Punk and new wave were a welcome relief to my ears, not only from disco, but from bad rehashes of late '60s and early '70s rock that went on forever, and still lives in the classic rock format. Argh!

[Scootaloo]

102. A lot of ALL music is bad

You're right, the argument that "disco sucks" comes, in part, from peopel who were just pissed that it was largely performed by black artists or multiracial goups, and had a large following in the gay nightlife. Not everyone of course - a lot of people simply insist disco sucks becuase they've been told disco sucks, without ever actually evaluating the actual musical quality.

Yeah, some disco is pretty bad... but the truth is, the bulk of ANY musical genre is bad. Disco's not special.

[napkinz]

26. wasn't it supposed to "live forever"?

[goldent]

100. I loved the Rolling Stones disco stuff.

That period was some of their best work, musically, in my opinion.

[napkinz]

105. Rolling Stones disco stuff ...

I like both songs, but a far departure from Satisfaction, Jumpin' Jack Flash, Brown Sugar.

[goldent]

106. I like Rolling Stones videos

because a lot of them have "real" vocals like the first one (Miss You). I imagine it was difficult to do the falsetto for Emotional Rescue which maybe is why he lip-synced to the record.

I like the older stuff too, but I think their sound during the disco period was the best, the way the guitars working together.

[Bigmack]

12. Disco gives me hope....

... if this country lived thru that shit, it can live thru anything!

[Recursion]

109. Except disco didn't break out until nearly the 1980s

Sort of like how the early 1960s were really what we think of the 1950s as being like, or the early 90s the 80s...

[Ilsa]

3. I think the gas lines at the pump scared people.

They had heard of bread lines in the USSR and were afraid that food lines were next.

I thought the 70s were better than most times.

[RebelOne]

76. I remember those gas lines and they were hell

because just as you got up to the pump the station would run out of gas.

[malthaussen]

7. I have a theory...

... but it's a pretty long one. The Cliff-Notes on Crack version is that it has become obligatory to bash the 70s -- pre-Disco and post-Disco -- as part of the counter-revolutionary narrative that demonizes the era and generation of one of excess and self-centeredness. What I find truly abominable is all the people who enjoyed themselves during the period now recanting and subscribing to the counter-revolution's interpretation of events. And doing it with that smug "we are all so much wiser now" sneer.

-- Mal

[Kelvin Mace]

27. The self-centeredness of the 70's

cannot in anyway compare to the pathological narcissism of the 80's on.

I can remember actually being hopeful in the 70's. The space program was going places, solar was going to replace oil, we were going to clean up the planet and start treating each other with dignity and respect.

For all the shit we gave disco (myself included) we bought the damned records and they were were no worse (and some would say are better) than groups we pick on today. For every little one-hit disco wonder, we had:

Queen
Three Dog Night
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
Chicago
Led Zepplin
Don McClean
Jackson Browne
Elton John
The Who
The Rocky Horror Picture Show

And so many more...

If I had to present an echo of the genuine hope we felt back then, it would be this little song from a Saturday afternoon kids show:

[Tom Ripley]

57. +1000 for your theory

[deutsey]

73. Bingo

I think there was some excess in the '70s and the counterculture did seem to run out of steam by '79, but for the most part the decade was a time when the right and the traditional ruling elites were on the ropes. The infamous Lewis Powell memo from 1971 pretty much said as much:

No thoughtful person can question that the American economic system is under broad attack. This varies in scope, intensity, in the techniques employed, and in the level of visibility.

There always have been some who opposed the American system, and preferred socialism or some form of statism (communism or fascism). Also, there always have been critics of the system, whose criticism has been wholesome and constructive so long as the objective was to improve rather than to subvert or destroy.

But what now concerns us is quite new in the history of America. We are not dealing with sporadic or isolated attacks from a relatively few extremists or even from the minority socialist cadre. Rather, the assault on the enterprise system is broadly based and consistently pursued. It is gaining momentum and converts.

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/The-Lewis-Powell-Memo/

And that was before the defeat in Vietnam, the Watergate scandal, and Nixon's resignation, along with the Church Committee, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, electoral reforms, etc., during the mid- to late-'70s.

The counter-revolutionary reaction that emerged in the mid-'70s and culminated in Reagan was a concerted effort among the elites to stop and begin to erase the countercultural gains made during the '60s and '70s. Part of that effort involved (and continues to involve) belittling and dismissing that era as trivial.

I don't ever listen to Rush Limbaugh, but I remember reading once (maybe even here on DU) that he claimed on his show that there was nothing good that happened during the '70s, either culturally or politically. For someone who only thinks of the '70s in terms of clown-like disco clothes or stoned hippies, that claim may seem plausible. However, for anyone who knows the actual history of that time and appreciates its groundbreaking cultural and political advances knows Limbaugh, as usual, is full of crap.

[BeyondGeography]

9. Unresolved anger on all sides coming out of the 60s combined with the realization

Last edited Mon Apr 7, 2014, 12:22 PM - Edit history (1)

that we no longer ruled the world.

We lose in Vietnam and here comes OPEC...bearded guys in gowns having a major impact on our daily life. That made a lot of people crazy here. Then the rise of Japan became apparent on the manufacturing side of things. The deep, dark suspicion was our time had come and gone and no was told differently until Voodoo Economic Man. And here we are...

[anneboleyn]

10. Yes and the beginning of the wage stagnation that is killing the middle class

Also many people think of the seventies as a time of higher crime (especially in cities such as New York), economic struggle, the gas crisis, various major political crises (Watergate, the hostages, Vietnam, etc), and of course very bad hair and too much polyester. The end of the decade also brought the first few newspaper articles and awareness of AIDS killing members of the gay community, which would of course be ignored by the 1980s administration.

[Kelvin Mace]

13. Couple of reasons

Vietnam shattered our view of "invincibility". Then OPEC kicked us in the teeth economically. Then we learned our president was a liar and a crook and that the CIA/FBI was spying on us and committing illegal activities (assassination, drug experiments, black bag jobs).

Of course, from 2000 on, it was deja vu all over again, but the younger generation didn't live through the 70's and a lot of the people who did got old and stopped thinking since Fox News and Rush were prepared to think for them.

[mountain grammy]

14. because I was raising two boys with a drunk, mean husband, trying to stay sane

while I watched my country succumb to corporate interests, feeling helpless and overwhelmed and living in, of all places, Texas.

That's my 70's story.

[House of Roberts]

15. Because people can't remember the sixties?

No seriously. That the 70s were bad is another RWNJ rewrite of history, in an attempt to blame everything that went wrong in the 80s on Carter.
The economy of the 70s was the blowback of US foreign policy in the Middle East, causing the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973, and the Iranian Revolution in 1979. The increases of the price of oil caused cost-push inflation. Neither Nixon nor Carter were able to do anything to stop prices rising, so the RW blames it all on Carter.
Reagan didn't do any better. Remember how in 2009 all the articles said this was the worst economy in 36 years? That dates back to 1983. Reagan hadn't been able to turn things around after two years in office, even though he still had a manufacturing base to stimulate. Yet they blamed the slow recovery in 2010-2011 on Obama, who had almost nothing to work with to make things better.

The 80s is when everything began to slide for the working class people. The 70s was when my parent's $87 a month mortgage payment became a tiny fraction of my dad's check, and my mom didn't have to work. By the 80s new families had to have two incomes to make ends meet.

[polichick]

16. That's when the right wing set up many think tanks and began telling the story...

The story was fictional, but is still told as fact today.

[Zorra]

40. +1 The MIC PTB were determined to insure that nothing like the 60's could ever happen again.

That foundation eventually turned the Democratic Party into a "mini me" of the republican party by hippie punching, killing off the unions, and then installing the DLC/Third Way Wall St crew as Dem party controllers.

[polichick]

45. That's how it went - and now we're at a place where the ptb have...

apparently already decided that it's best if Dems don't win in the midterm. And, if the TPP is next up on the agenda, that makes sense.

But where does it leave all of us? There are three generations of voters who see what's going on - critical mass?

[Zorra]

65. I feel that we need to get out the Dem vote in huge numbers, and watch every race closely to

make sure as few elections are stolen as possible.

We don't have a Presidential election or a highly visible progressive protest movement like Occupy to get young people, progressive independents, and low info Dem leaning voters excited about voting this year like we did in 2012, where we picked up a few seats in the House and Senate, so we'll have to pull out all the stops to make sure we don't have a total redo of 2010.

With PTB favorable "New Rules" in the electoral process being made up by SCOTUS on a regular basis, rampant republican gerrymandering, and an MSM that is totally owned by the 1%, it will be a difficult, uphill battle for us.

It will be interesting to see if the DNC puts forth any kind of effective "battle plan" for us, a kind of "how to use the ACA as a means to convince voters to vote Democratic" plan, or simply nods and winks with that slimy Third Way smile as they escort republicans through the door of the Capitol, in service of the 1%.

[polichick]

69. Wonder how many running this year are liberal Dems (vs Third Way). It really...

will be interesting to see what the DNC game plan looks like.

It's become so clear why Howard Dean had to go.

[leftstreet]

53. +1 And the media created the mythical 'silent majority'

Suddenly all your neighbors were Archie Bunkers

[polichick]

56. Yeah, wasn't that a nice trick?

[unblock]

20. partly it was the inflation, partly it was opportunism to deflect from nixon

the inflation (for which the blame should go largely, if not exclusively, to nixon/ford and the middle east oil shocks -- not carter) was a great stroke of political fortune for republicans desperate for a remake after nixon went from hero to zero after watergate.

carter's biggest political mistake by far was failing to tar the republican party with the permanent brand of watergate. yet the stain remained, until saint ronnie came along and allowed them to remake themselves in the image of a genial grandpa figure which could put down democrats with a gleam in his eye.

presto, image remake, carter and the democrats became the party of incompetence and worst ever, because of the twin failures of inflation and hostages (things carter didn't cause nor could any president do much about -- except that carter did set volker on the anti-inflation warpath, we just rendered our verdict before the cure kicked in) and republicans became the charming morning in america party and watergate was long-forgotten.

[Nye Bevan]

31. There was also the incompetent foreign policy of the Carter White House.

Carter just never really got what the Iranian revolution was about, for example.

[Zorra]

43. That's a major part of the RW propaganda meme that brought us Reagan.

I remember it well.

Reagan used the economic problems, Iran hostage crisis, and lack of Washington cooperation to portray Carter as a weak and ineffectual leader. Carter was the first elected president since Hoover in 1932 to lose a reelection bid.
snip---
....in historical rankings of US presidents, the Carter presidency has ranged from No. 19 to #34.

Although his presidency received mixed reviews, his peace keeping and humanitarian efforts since he left office have made Carter renowned as one of the most successful ex-presidents in US history.[69][70]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter

Do you believe that Reagan was, in many ways, superior to Carter as President?

[unblock]

44. trenchant insight. had he "got" it, what would he have done differently?

[Nye Bevan]

55. The most obvious thing is that he should never have invited the Shah into the US.

That absolutely inflamed anti-US sentiment among the Iranian revolutionaries. Had he not done that, the embassy hostage crisis probably would have not happened.

[unblock]

58. armchair quarterbacking.

it's easy to imagine some other perceived slight setting them off.

it's also more complicated than simply saying "no" to letting the shah in. foreign policy genius does not usually lie in abandoning allies, and denying him entry to the u.s. could have had complex repercussions elsewhere.

[Nye Bevan]

62. OK, you ask me what he should have done differently, then accuse me of "armchair quarterbacking"

when I tell you.

How can I possibly answer your question without engaging in what you characterize as "armchair quarterbacking"?

[unblock]

68. by "armchair quarterbacking" i just mean it need more analysis to support it.

yes, carter let the shah in; and yes, that pissed of the iranians, who subsequently took the hostages.
but simply asserting that well, if carter hadn't done that, then nothing bad would have ever happened, that's what i call armchair quarterbacking.

same as looking at a football game where after an interception and saying, hey, i would have called a run. no pass, no interception. that's armchair quarterbacking because all you're doing is finding a scenario where you can claim different results with no particular analysis. maybe a run was the right call, but it takes more analysis than "no pass, no interception" do make the case.

similarly, perhaps not letting the shah in might have made all the difference, but it needs considerably more analysis to support that conclusion.

[TexasProgresive]

59. Back up a bit

We never should have put the Shah in power. We should've keep our noses out of their business and a whole lot of other people's business.

[Nye Bevan]

64. OK maybe, but presidents have to deal with the situation that actually exists,

not the situation that should have existed had someone not screwed up in the past.

[eppur_se_muova]

70. Yes, he should never have listened to Kissinger.

Kissinger worked very hard to persuade Carter to allow the Shah to come to the US. Carter may have been guilty of naivete, bad judgment, or misunderstanding, but Kissinger was evil protecting evil.

[Art_from_Ark]

87. Carter didn't do so well in Afghanistan and Iran

Last edited Mon Apr 7, 2014, 09:16 PM - Edit history (1)

but he did help to bring Egypt and Israel together, and he emphasized human rights in his foreign policy. Overall, I would not call his foreign policy incompetent, but it seemed like that because it was mainly the Iran fiasco that was getting the nation's attention.

[rock]

28. Two questions

1) Who says they were the ultimate bad time?
2) Weren't they?

[Nye Bevan]

29. Oh, and don't forget the kitchens.

[lame54]

30. Bell-Bottoms

[RebelOne]

75. I loved bell-bottoms. That's just about all I wore in the '70s. n/t

[Enthusiast]

85. Me too.

[Paladin]

33. I remember hating the 70's at the time---shitty music, clothes, etc.

Funny how good that decade looks to me now, by comparison.

[Art_from_Ark]

89. I have very mixed feelings about the '70s.

In one way they were great because they were a time of discovery for me. Most of the moon landings happened in the '70s, and then there were the Mariner, Viking, Pioneer and Voyager space probes that were sending back pictures of new worlds. Apollo-Soyuz helped to allay my fears about a possible US-USSR nuclear showdown. There was also Skylab, which was pretty exciting because it showed that humans could stay in space for extended periods of time. All the preparatory events leading up to the Bicentennial celebration were pretty cool, too.

But there was a lot of bad stuff, too. Inflation and crime were pretty bad. And for me, personally, 1973 and 1978 were two of the worst years of my life.

[FarCenter]

34. Nixon

[Dirty Socialist]

41. Maybe Republicans Hate The 70's

Because that's when Nixon got CAUGHT.

[eShirl]

35. Because Reagan hadn't yet ascended to living godhood.

November 1980

[gulliver]

91. Yup. If the seventies weren't bad, Reagan's no hero.

He would be just some addled, has-been, front man for a pack of orcs who thought selling arms to Iran from the White House was a good idea.

[2pooped2pop]

36. I loved the 70's n/t

[polichick]

51. Me too. Great music! Great times!

[ohheckyeah]

54. What I can remember of the 70s

was pretty damn fun. Some of it is a bit hazy.

[2pooped2pop]

71. I believe that may be why I loved them.

lol

[ohheckyeah]

86. Ditto.....n/t

[Demo_Chris]

37. Gas lines, terrifying inflation, hostage crisis and a President totally out of his depth...

Carter gets a lot of crap that is undoubtedly undeserved and he doesn't get the credit he deserves for some accomplishments -- just like EVERY President -- but the guy was a freaking disaster. Trying to repaint him as anything but this is as silly as the Republicans trying to do the same with Bush.

In my opinion.

[Nye Bevan]

38. He's a good man. But he was not a good president (nt)

[CFLDem]

39. Very well said!

[SharonAnn]

48. Oh, I thought you meant Gerald Ford. He was "totally out of his depth". Remeber WIN?

On teh inflation problems:

Nixon implemented Wage and Price controls
Ford implemented WIN (Whip Inflation Now!)
Carter actually reduced inflation.

The facts, and the right-wing talking points, aren't the same.

[raccoon]

61. Looking back, Ford seems like a genius compared to you-know-who.

WIN was awfully stupid, I agree.

[Fumesucker]

82. Pardoning Nixon was certainly a stroke of genius for the Republicans

It opened the way for Regan in 1980.

[Demo_Chris]

66. As I said, this rewriting stuff is silly...

http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&docid=54ZpzNoutWXgAM&tbnid=1vr7sHqPUXsHvM:&ved=0CAUQjBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.seekingalpha.com%2Fuploads%2F2008%2F2%2F7%2Fmedsprice.jpg&ei=i91CU8CsCqmqsQSRp4HoAw&psig=AFQjCNGev0v1HiqNQWMNXXqJlwbf0uXp3A&ust=1396977419223588

The thing about historical revision is that it only really works when the people who lived through it are no longer around to roll their eyes. There is a REASON Carter was primaried by Ted Kennedy, and a reason he lost to Reagan. As President, he was a freaking DISASTER for our nation and our party. That said, I believe he was a great man, just not a good President, and I think the nation sees him that way.

And there is nothing wrong with that.

[BeyondGeography]

50. The man and his times were not made for each other

Carter saw himself as a post-Watergate President but, it turned out, the country couldn't handle the truth about anything in that era. He had no Plan B on the communications/image front when honesty (no one cared; people, as always, put their own security front-and-center) and competence (it was a very tough time for anyone to appear competent) got him nowhere. By 1980, there was no real passion for Carter among the base, just fear of Reagan. It wasn't nearly enough.

[Drunken Irishman]

107. Carter would've been a fantastic president in 1996.

[kentauros]

47. I discovered public radio in the 70s

and it only got better and better after that

[raccoon]

60. Inflation burned up everyone's arse. Oh, and gas "shortages." nt

[Blue_In_AK]

67. Disco.

[aikoaiko]

79. And there was the crime thing.

Its have been rising, but it soared to some of its higher levels by the end of the seventies, plateaued through the 80 and started to come down in the 1990s.

[The Straight Story]

81. A mix of things

For me, here in Ohio - tornadoes, blizzard, school without schools, Star Wars, gas shortages, computers coming into the home, video games, good music, rocky horror, 8 tracks, trips in the station wagon riding in the very back (no seat belt) playing with star trek toys, the kkk, hippies, and so many more memories.

It, like most decades, had some good and bad and was a big time of change. The mid way between the turbulent 60's and the 80's.

[KansDem]

83. "Filmed before a live audience"

I remember a lot of sitcoms went to being "filmed before a live audience." Shows like Maude, Mary Tyler Moore, Happy Days, WKRP in Cincinnati, Barney Miller, etc. Sets were limited as well as camera angles. An episode seemed like a 20-minute play.

I went to a taping of "Maude." It was the episode where John Wayne had a cameo.

[loyalsister]

96. God'll get you for that :)

I loved Maude! Bea Arthur was awesome in that role.

[AgingAmerican]

94. Disco

nt

[goldent]

101. I remember the unemployment.

Historically, I'm not sure how bad it was, but it was painful at the time.

[elleng]

103. Was a good time for me in many ways,

first job out of college paid rent and food (with friends,) decided to go to law school + got state guaranteed loan, worked while attending law school, first job out of law school as VISTA Volunteer Attorney so anything I made more than that stipend looked good, and its been up ever since. (Not WAY up, but perfectly acceptable but for husband's problem with finances in the 80's, as he'd decided to borrow on value of the house after my job changed, resulting in me getting away from him, and then having to sue him for my share of sale price of our house.)

But that's just my anecdotal story.

[Generic Brad]

104. Well, we had rocks for pets

Sure, they were fairly low maintenance. But they just were not as soft and cuddly as cats or dogs.

[Drunken Irishman]

108. My guess: Nixon, crime, the deteriorating inner-city, racial strife, Iran, gas lines, inflation...

[Recursion]

110. Crime and urban decay is a huge one

70s crime rates make todays' look like a playhouse (still not as bad as the 90s, though).

This was when the "urban renewal" fad really started to have some of its worst consequences -- it turns out cramming thousands of really poor people into concrete highrises surrounded by freeways wasn't such a good idea. The white flight of the previous two decades is well known, but there was also the "green flight" of middle-class minority families getting the hell out of cities at this point, too, moving into the inner suburbs (which created a second round of white flight from those into the exurbs).

[amandabeech]

112. People tend to remember the gas lines and prices doubling and tripling.

People are the same now. A two cent rise in the price of and some people go into a frenzy. The prices in the grocery stores are insane now, but there's not the gnashing of teeth that go with gas prices.

Thanks for posting the krugman blog, though. It's a good read.