I've been puzzled by one thing in our recent political history....

[nadinbrzezinski]

The 1950s were a golden age where unions were strong, and people attained a middle class lifestyle. It is puzzling that many in that class of workers were willing to vote against precisely that, in the 1980s. I am sure volumes have been written on this, but colonel Sanders and chickens come to mind. And we are now facing the real consequences of that...plus many of those voters are now part of the t-party...alas they were alive in the 1950s...

[Brickbat]

1. The Greatest Generation got lazy and greedy, and forgot that the gains they made came at great cost.

There, I said it.

[abelenkpe]

+1 nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. That is too simple, albeit satisfying at a deep level

[Brickbat]

4. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Alas simple answers when dealing with sociology

Or economic are never right...see lower taxes will solve everything for another simple solution to a complex problem we make fun off.

[Brickbat]

9. Well, sure -- when you take a "simple answer" that's wrong...

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. That is because things usually are more complex than that, as in layered.

[LiberalLoner]

6. Here is the way I see it:

The generation that were grownups during the great depression understood very well why unions were important and why the common good, rather than greed, was to be revered.

Their children rebelled. Children often do rebel. Each generation rebels against their parents.

My grandmother was from that first generation. She was very much a liberal and a Democrat and believed in unions.

My father was her child. He rebelled against the idea of unions, the idea of the common good, even against the idea of marriage and being a decent member of society.

My father's generation has voted right-wing ever since they were young adults. (Not every single one of them, but ENOUGH of them.) When my grandmother's generation largely died off, my father's generation took over.

Now, 30 years later, another big change is about to happen. My father's generation (he is in his late 70's now) is getting close to dying. The generations following his are generally more liberal as a whole.

So the plutocracy is pushing for all of it while they still can. Trying to establish the dictatorship, before all of my father's generation dies off and they lack the electoral numbers.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. And that is Judt's thesis partially

Part of puzzle. I'm writing an intro, so it came to me. I know not an easy to fully answer question.

[hifiguy]

18. You've read "Ill Fares the Land"?

GREAT book. Elegant, superbly descriptive, beautifully reasoned. Truly a must read.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Among others, doing this history of labor shtick is

sending me in all kinds of directions. His is critical for labor as well.

[dissidentboomer]

13. I think this could be PART of the truth.... My folks were several years older but

that mirrors my experience and what I've observed in some other families.

[truedelphi]

19. I think your story is similar to what I have observed.

Once a group of people "pulls themselves up by their bootstraps" and arrives at prosperity, they forget that the "lower classes" need breaks.

They are more interested in seeing how to "manage the workforce" they need in their businesses.
Their concerns are profit-oriented. Those who are not making it must be inferior people.

I have watched as kids I grew up with inherited their parents ' businesses and paid the workers poorly, and yet remained Democrats. But in name only.

[Proud Public Servant]

3. "What's the matter with Kansas?"

GOP was brilliant about getting that class of workers animated about something other than their material conditions (e.g., Evil Empires and Welfare Queens).

Dems sucked at reminding that same class of their economic interests.

The rest, as you say, is history...

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. That is part of the puzzle

Read it, and frankly more nuanced than generational blame. There is Judt's Ill Fares the Land. But these are pieces in the puzzle. We need to figure this out and fast.

[Proud Public Servant]

14. Don't know Judt's book

but will seek it out. Thanks for the tip!

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Ill Fares the Land

And his thesis applies to not just the US.

[dawg]

7. It was mostly racism.

Just look at which states switched sides, and it's pretty clear.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Another piece in puzzle.

Same states led the way after right to work came in a generation before. They did not fully benefit from pesky unions.

[dissidentboomer]

16. Yep. Also part of it. They were MASTERFUL at dividing us MANY different ways and people STILL fall

for it.

[The Magistrate]

17. Short Answer, Ma'am

Three main factors.

First, racial: backlash against the civil rights movement, which large portions of white working class people saw as solidly against their economic interest, and certainly against their self-image as 'better' beings.

Second, patriotism: left opposition to the Viet Nam war split left activists from white working class people, who saw such opposition as un-patriotic, and as siding with a national enemy.

Third, 'counter-culture' and 'liberation' issues: many white working class people saw the whole counter-culture movement as an offensive display of indolence and parasitism, and reacted to things like 'women's lib' in the same manner as they did to civil rights for Black people.

The unifying element in all this is that, during the sixties and into the seventies, the left in this country ceased to focus on economic issues, on general betterment of working people, and focused instead on promoting things that many white working people were actively repelled by.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. Thanks and those are real good keys to the puzzle

[Solomon]

36. With all due respect, those are THE keys to the puzzle.

I never seen the Magistrate as apt and concise, even in the order of presentation. And that's saying a lot as you know.

[indurancevile]

22. the 60s/70s psyops campaign.

[Horse with no Name]

23. My best guess?

The 30's and 40's mostly mimics where we are today. In fact, we are actually repeating history with the weird little twist of instead of attempting to build a social safety net, we are attempting to dismantle one---so, we will going economically forward from the beginning of the decade and socially backward from the end of the decade, yet ending with the same result as they started with. We are actually in a regressive mode.

Check this out:
http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade30.html
FACTS about this decade.
Population: 123,188,000 in 48 states
Life Expectancy: Male, 58.1; Female, 61.6
Average salary: $1,368
Unemployment rises to 25%
Huey Long propses a guaranteed annual income of $2,500
Car Sales: 2,787,400
Food Prices: Milk, 14 cents a qt.; Bread, 9 cents a loaf; Round Steak, 42 cents a pound
Lynchings: 21

>>>snip
In the Great Depression the American dream had become a nightmare. What was once the land of opportunity was now the land of desperation. What was once the land of hope and optimism had become the land of despair.The American people were questioning all the maxims on which they had based their lives - democracy, capitalism, individualism. The best hope for a better life was California. Many Dust Bowl farmers packed their families into cars, tied their few possessions on the back, and sought work in the agricultural fields or cities of the West - their role as independent land owners gone forever. Between 1929 and 1932 the income of the average American family was reduced by 40%, from $2,300 to $1,500. Instead of advancement, survival became the keyword. Institutions, attitudes, lifestyles changed in this decade but democracy prevailed. Democracies such as Germany and Italy fell to dictatorships, but the United States and its constitution survived.

MY comment: I don't know whether it will survive this time. I am not at all optimistic about this.

>>>>snip

Economics dominated politics in the 1930's. The decade began with shanty towns called Hoovervilles, named after a president who felt that relief should be left to the private sector, and ended with an alphabet soup of federal programs funded by the national government and an assortment of commissions set up to regulate Wall Street, the banking industry, and other business enterprises. The Social Security Act of 1935 set up a program to ensure an income for the elderly. The Wagner Act of 1935 gave workers the legal right to unionize. John L. Lewis founded the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and conditions for blue-collar workers improved. Joseph P. Kennedy, a Wall Street insider, was appointed Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commissions.

>>>snip
The 1930's were a perilous time for public education. With cash money in short supply parents were unable to provide their children with the necessary clothes, supplies, and textbooks (which were not furnished in some states) to attend school. Taxes, especially in rural areas, went unpaid. With the loss of revenue, school boards were forced to try numerous strategies to keep their districts operating. School terms were shortened. Teachers' salaries were cut. One new teacher was paid $40 a month for a five month school year - and was very glad for the job! When a rural county in Arkansas was forced to charge tuition one year in order to keep the schools open, some children were forced to drop out for that year. One farmer was able to barter wood to fuel the classrooms' potbellied stoves for his four children's tuition, thus enabling them to continue their education.

>>>snip
Pure scientific research suffered from the lack of funding. Nevertheless, in physics ground breaking experiments in atom smashingwere being conducted at such institutions as Columbia University and the California Institute of Technology. Albert Einstein immigrated to the United States in 1933 and became a professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University. From here in 1939 he wrote his famous letter to President Rooseveltrecommending the development of the atomic bomb. In the field of astronomy the ninth major planet, Pluto, was discovered in 1930.



Now, the biggest difference between now and the 1930's was religion...and, IMHO, it is what saved them but will destroy us.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug02/newyorker/religion.html

>>>snip
While there was some resurgence of piety among the lower classes (which manifested itself in an increase in the strenght of religious fundamentalism during this decade) most middle and upper class individuals, remained unmoved even though they too may have suffered from the Depression. This cover plainly represents how the uppper classes during the 1930's continued to pay little attention to religion during this decade. The tip of a hat by the dead rich gentleman being rushed up to heaven shows the only tacit attention which such individuals, often caught up in the business world, paid to matters of religion.

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. And that is the thesis of the Fourth Turning

as well as toynbee... history does repeat itself.

[fivepennies]

24. Continually decreasing value of the dollar.

Case in point: I bought a brand new Ford Mustang in the mid '60s - one of the first on the road. That beautiful little thing cost roughly $1800.00 off the showroom floor. I turned around a few times and new cars were suddenly selling for $18,000.00. Did that mean new cars were worth that much more, or was it because the value the dollar had so massively declined while no one was looking? Teagaggers - and lots of others are still not looking.

Costs kept going up - income did not keep pace. Massive hidden inflation. Fractional banking. Purely unintentional, don't you know.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. In other words inflation but we have had that forever

and the only way to keep the illusion off is to do what oh your neighbor to the south has done a few times... REISSUE the Peso, and remove a few zeroes from it. Still the acquisitive value is relatively the same. It just feels like things do not cost as much... part of puzzle as well,

[fivepennies]

29. To hell with zeroes,

remove the interest charged by private bankers from the issue of money. I wouldn't trust most of the bozos in congress right now to handle it much better than the private banks but, IMO, issuing a national debt free currency is the only solution. The government wouldn't need to borrow money from them and even if we had to pay interest on personal loans directly to the treasury, it would probably go a lot further than it does when we give tax dollars AND interest payments to Wall Street banks.

Just because we've had inflation forever doesn't mean its a real smart thing to do. We're seeing the results of making that same mistake forever.

edit to clarify

[nadinbrzezinski]

30. We do, that is the T-Bill

and yes it is an interest bearing instrument.

But whether you have a mercantilistic economy, a medieval economy, a command economy (Essentially what we had during WW II and the Soviets had for decades) or a capitalist economy that is regulated or laisse faire, you have some sort of inflation.

But our central bank does issue treasury bills, which are interest bearing instruments.

Now what you are suggesting is we get rid of banks, as in private banks... and while there might be some place for that, they have been around in modern from since before capitalism. They are actually a medieval, late medieval-renaissance institution.

The crisis is so deep... debt wise, that there is no way nation states can pay it... some economists are talking about this. The last time debt was cancelled, went poof, in major ways... was WW II, 1945 to be exact. And we might see this after things get far worst for macro reasons.

[fivepennies]

31. Yep, bankers have been around for around 6000 years

in various forms.

About 30 years ago I heard it said that if the US was to pay off its total debt to the current batch of financiers, we'd have to give them all of everyone's money plus all of their property and we'd still owe the banks three more Americas. We're probably up to five or six extra Americas by now and God ain't making no new dirt (to borrow a phrase).

Kennedy tried to fix it. He had a great plan. And it can be fixed, but we'd have to want it enough to be willing to give up much of what we're used to before it could happen. I think we're going to have to do that anyway.

[nadinbrzezinski]

32. Alas Clinton was well on it's way

and the policy from the right is to get the country into debt to destroy the government. We need to wake up to this... the RIGHT is the no tax and spend group.

[fivepennies]

37. Destroying America was always the plan

and yes, the right wingers are up to their furry eyeballs in it, but there are some on the left, as well.

But even if every single American woke up to their sleight of hand tricks tomorrow morning and some bright gutsy leader revoked the banks (mostly rightwing elitist corporatist types) ability to do what they do to enslave us all, including the government, into indebtedness, give them back the ability to issue/lend money and they'd own it all again, in very short order. They've done this over and over and over throughout history and whenever some upstart gets tired of it and throws them the hell out of their country's wallet it never takes long to weasel their way back in because of some later leader's weaknesses. Its that ever vigilent thing that we humans can't seem to get a grip on.

[Selatius]

34. The Thirteen Colonies operated paper currency that was, in some cases, inflation free.

http://21stcenturycicero.wordpress.com/fraud/colonial-scrip/

The biggest difference between Colonial Scrip and the US Dollar is that the US Dollar is issued by the Federal Reserve, a quasi-private entity, and the USD is subject to fractional-reserve banking. With Colonial Scrip, though, only the state government could "create" money; whereas, in our system, any bank with the ability to lend money from people's deposits is, essentially, creating money. With all these banks running around creating money from deposits, of course there is going to be the damaging effects of inflation. You have increasingly more amounts of money chasing around relatively the same amount of goods.

[fivepennies]

38. Yeah, that Ben Franklin guy was pretty clever.

A study of American Colonial history will reveal that Benjamin Franklin went to England as a representative of the Colonies.

The English officials asked how it was the Colonies managed to collect enough taxes to build poor houses, and how they were able to handle the great burden of caring for the poor. Franklin's reply was most revealing: "We have no poor houses in the Colonies, and if we had, we would have no one to put in them, as in the Colonies there is not a single unemployed man, no poor and no vagabonds." Think long and hard about this. In the American colonies before the American Revolution, there was "not a single unemployed man, no poor and no vagabonds". -- no one on Welfare, no one on Social Security, no homeless, no income tax, no alphabet agencies, No IRS, BATF, FBI, DEA, CIA, HEW, OSHA, SBA, and on and on and on to provide for the "general welfare" of our villages, towns, cities and states. How did Benjamin Franklin explain this to the British officials of his day?
How would he explain it to today's lawyers, judges, politicians and other government officials? "It is because, in the Colonies, we issue our own paper money. We call it Colonial Script, and we issue only enough to move all goods freely from the producers to the Consumers; and as we create our money, we control the purchasing power of money, and have no interest to pay."
-Benjamin Franklin

This system guarantees HONEST MONEY. It was not controlled by a private corporation with a monopoly on the credit of the nation as it is today.

There was no inflation or deflation, as long as the MONEY SUPPLY WAS KEPT EQUAL TO THE VALUE OF GOODS AND SERVICES TO BE PRODUCED AND MOVED (distributed).

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. And it was backed up in some cases

by Indentured\slave labor.

I am not sure I'd use that as an example.

[Armstead]

25. Its pretty simple actually...

The 70's sucked big time. Nothing was working. America seemed in decline.

Carter and Democrats and "liberalism" got unfairky blamed (even though it fell apart under Nixon and Ford).

GOP was smart. Gave a sunny message by Sunny Ronald that they could bring Morning in America. Too many people bought it.

Democrats lost their spine and compass. Basically gave up and stopped challenging GOP dogma.

The rest is history.

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. Alas the last ten years have sucked just as bad

and we are in real decline...

But that is also part of the puzzle. As hubby put it. Reagan could make you feel GOOD about things sucking so much

[Armstead]

35. Well, there is a certain sense of deja vu about the recent/current sitruation

More parallels to the late 70's than I'd care to think about.

[nadinbrzezinski]

39. Hey at least we do not have Disco

There HAS to be a bright side!

:-)

[cali]

33. the 1950s were no golden age. Not for women. Not for African Americans

and not for any other minorities. It's important to note that.