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Two Miserable Decades: Don’t worry, it was even worse in the 1970s. Or was it?
The Weekly Standard ^ | 09/19/2013 | Jonathan V. Last

Posted on 09/20/2013 5:03:14 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Happy times are all alike, nestled in the comfortable batting of peace, growth, and stability. Every unhappy time is unhappy in its own way.

America has been blessed because, since the end of the Great Depression, our nation has experienced only two periods of deep discontent that lasted a decade or more. The first was the 1970s. We are living through the second today. Which was worse?

The popular mind often misremembers the past. For instance, these days the 1950s are held out as a time deserving special scorn. Stories set in the Eisenhower era are often shot through with contempt for the racism, sexism, hypocrisy, and dissatisfaction of American life. But this is revisionism; by many measures—wages, unemployment, home sales, marital stability, births, savings rates, upward mobility—the ’50s were an idyll.

What’s more, the happy times of the 1950s stretched into the 1960s. So long that “The ’60s” as we remember them—Woodstock, long hair, free love—didn’t really get underway until 1967 and continued well into the 1970s. That’s one of the central insights of David Frum’s wonderful book about the ’70s, How We Got Here. His other insight is that whatever people want to believe about the ’50s and ’60s, the stretch from 1967 to 1979 was a rarely mitigated disaster.

Many people remember the headlines from the 1970s: the shooting war in Vietnam and the quiet but existential threat of the larger Cold War; a president nearly impeached; oil shocks that forced people to stand in line for gasoline. But the problems in America were both broader and deeper.

(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: 1970s
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To: Fiji Hill

Although good jobs were hard to find, I recall the 1970’s as an era in which the economy continued to expand, at least in California.

Well, Reagan was governor during the first half of the decade of the 70’s. Then in 1975, Governor Moonbeam took over and put in place the policies that made California what it is today ( and now California is suffering the same Karma once again... HE’S BACK !!! I hate to see what the golden state will look like a decade from now ).


21 posted on 09/20/2013 5:49:08 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: ClearCase_guy

The marxist progression is to first eliminate the “bourgeoisie,” what we would call the Middle Class. That is accomplished by devaluing its defining institutions, siphoning off its money through taxes and redistribution, and aligning the prevailing culture against it through repeated denigration and scorn.

The next step is to set the proletariat — the Underclass — at war with the bourgeoisie through class envy and exaggeration of their differences. The goal is the destruction of the inertial Middle Class that historically has offered the greatest resistance to change.

Then the discontented, seething masses can be easily directed to attack the last remaining bastions of wealth: the Capitalists. Strikes, government takeovers, and onerous regulation mark this stage, until private enterprise has been virtually eliminated in the name of “fairness.”

At that point, the pretense is dropped and the government steps in and nationalizes everything, redistributing the collective wealth “unto each according to his need.”

You figure out what stage America is in now.


22 posted on 09/20/2013 5:49:37 AM PDT by IronJack (=)
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To: SeekAndFind

Jerry Brown’s political career was aided by the GOP’s choice of poor candidates to oppose him.

In 1974, after Lieutenant Governor Ed Reinecke was convicted of a Watergate-related charge by an all-black, all-Democrat jury—a charge that was later overturned—the GOP chose Senator Houston Flournoy (R-Pomona) as its gubernatorial standard bearer. Flournoy, a liberal big-government Republican who boasted of having given California a full-time legislature was smoked by Brown.

In 1978, Republican voters chose as their candidate Los Angeles County DA Evelle Younger, another liberal who opposed the popular Proposition 13 property tax limitation initiative and supported California Supreme Court Chief Justice Rose Bird, a flaming liberal judicial activist heartily hated by vast numbers of Californians. Brown had now trouble winning re-election.


23 posted on 09/20/2013 6:38:32 AM PDT by Fiji Hill (n)
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To: SeekAndFind

There is no comparison to the 70’s and today. This country and the world are in an economic pickle as well as the US being as divided as it was just prior to the CW.


24 posted on 09/20/2013 7:18:23 AM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
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To: CharlotteVRWC
Waaaay worse..

Really? I remember financing a new car with great credit and the best interest rate I could find was 22%. A mortgage was 18%.

The price of gas tripled almost over night..gas lines remember them..how about driving at the double nickel and truckers calling ineffective strikes in protest of prices. The military was weak and demoralized because of the Dims weakness..remember the rescue in the desert going up in smoke..and the loss of brave Americans..the hostages and the humiliation of the US.

The difference was back then the demographics of the country made the election of a conservative a cinch in 1980..I'm not particularly hopeful it will be the same in 2016 but its possible if Obama and the Dims continue to be afraid ..

Unfortunately, most today can only cry how bad things are and have no sense of history to really evaluate were we are today compared to earlier times. It doesn't help that the political leaders of both parties for the most part are fools only interested in getting elected and reelected.

I think things can and probably will get waaay worse than in the 70’s but realistically we have a long way to go to get there.

25 posted on 09/20/2013 7:37:30 AM PDT by montanajoe
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To: SeekAndFind

The 70’s were pretty bad.

The only thing that was more hopeful is that far more of the electorate supported traditional American values, and was capable of demonstrating a modicum of common sense.

A majority of Under 30’s tell pollsters they’re open to the idea of chucking capitalism. The future looks bleak indeed.


26 posted on 09/20/2013 7:41:02 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: SeekAndFind
We were happy in the 50's:


27 posted on 09/20/2013 7:42:00 AM PDT by 11th_VA (I want a president who won't enforce tax laws ...)
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To: SeekAndFind
Even the GOP was happy:


28 posted on 09/20/2013 7:47:58 AM PDT by 11th_VA (I want a president who won't enforce tax laws ...)
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