[Pesqueeb]

Thoughts?

Two thanksgivings ago, I was in LA talking with my best friend from high school's mom. Old hippie lady. Like san fran in the 60's, drugs, sit in's, protests, arrests, kind of hippie. I love her dearly, she had a huge influence on me growing up. She married a guy who was not. Central valley rancher/orange grower/proud right wing nut. They had the most amazing fights, but they loved each other and found peace, somehow, until the day he died. She told me that thanksgiving that she had lost hope, that the political system was irrevocably broken, in her mind. If Sherry, could live through that era, be married for 30+ years to that raging a-hole Jim Hocker, and just now be losing hope, I found impossible to believe. I thought maybe age and/or drug use had finally caught up. I'm starting to think maybe she was right. But I was born in 1978, probably what most historians might consider a very good time to be white, middle class, in America, so when I look around and see what I consider to be some of the more fundamental, turbulent struggles of my life time, I'm aware that the bar might be set quite a bit higher for me. I wonder what those of you (admittedly a small group here on teh ) might say when contrasting now with then.

Edit: In very much the same vein, this makes for sort of an interesting read.

 

[Serial Midget]

As a society we only celebrate or abhor the extremes even though the vast majority of our lives are spent somewhere in the middle. We hate mediocrity but strive to be like one another or maybe just a little bit better...

Also: the local drug dealer of the 70s is today's life enrichment coordinator who would never wear fur or pimp 7 gold rings on one hand. Times change.

 

[stevew]

a very good time to be white

uhhhh.....when has it not been?

 

[rideit]

Moorish Spain?

 

[stevew]

Moorish Spain?

in our lifetime?

 

[Pesqueeb]

uhhhh.....when has it not been?

I guess what I meant was there has never been, historically speaking, a better time to be alive and in a position of privilege.

 

[johnbryanpeters]

I note that, as an old white guy, I wear an astonishing coat of immunity. I missed a big chunk of the exploding cities era because I was in Pusan, Korea from 1966 to 1968, and isolated from events here.

I would have a hard time making a decision as to whether today's situation is more or less dire than then, but some elements to consider are:

• Then we were fucking up the environment but were only dimly aware of the extent. Today we have a clearer understanding but are doing nothing substantial to counteract it, and I don't think we will.
• Then we had a movement that in time managed to remove a fraction of the burden upon descendants of slaves, while not really finishing the job and again only dimly managing to include better treatment for women, Asians, Latinos, &c... Today burdens remain on all noted fronts and we have a raving mob of the white disenfranchised on the prowl seeking to gain what they had only in imagination.
• Then we had the overtly racist Dixiecrats controlling government in the south, and in large part nationally, today we have the fracturing remains of the Republican machine which took over the racism veiled in doublespeak.
• Then, we made a little progress on beating back the spooks, even as their work destabilized and severely damaged much of Latin America. The WTC fiasco was a major and destructive turning point for the United States; the crazies killed 3,000 people and we ran ourselves bankrupt in a series of unsuccessful wars and meekly accepted the ratcheting up of the police state and notably the militarization of the police. In the process we created a strange new religion centered around the WTC and around police and firefighters as suffering demigods.

Is now better or worse than then? I don't know, but we're closer to the edge.

So where's it all going?

• We will do nothing effective to abate destruction of the ecosystems on which we depend.
• At some point, things will break. The most likely trigger will be failure of our IT infrastructure, upon which we have become overdependent.
• Once things break, and after a lot of people have died, we'll be back to smaller kingdoms and tribes, and will still manage to be at war with each other most of the time. Such indigenous people as we have not managed to murder in support of extraction or large scale agriculture will have an edge for survival, having retained cultural behavior less dependent on technology.

 

[eric strt6]

Not a lot has changed except for massive media coverage.

I grew up with the black and Latino gangs taking over Los Angeles from the Italian/Irish mafia, the Watts Riots. anti Vietnam protests.

Mao was still killing off millions of Chinese, Pol Pot was killing millions of Cambodians. ISIS are rank amateurs in that respect. We didn't care because it was godless yellow commies killing yellow commies. ISIS gets the headlines because it's "Muzzies" killing "god fearing Christians" so they are todays boogieman.

Biggest difference is that we dismanteled the US education system. Its easier for those in power to stay in power using fear to guide the ignorant masses to do what they want them to.

 

[jonKranked]

also, ISDS. see other thread.

 

[stevew]

Biggest difference is that we dismanteled the US education system. Its easier for those in power to stay in power using fear to guide the ignorant masses to do what they want them to.

like you only have two choices to vote for....

 

[eric strt6]

like you only have two choices to vote for....

I wasn't refering to the elected puppets but to the puppet masters themselves, the corporations and the uber rich that run them who own the politicians and us by default.