Posted on 07/17/2008 6:32:34 AM PDT by Nony
In the last 20 years, we were lectured constantly about “post-industrial” America.
Experts proclaimed that the United States had evolved into an “information society” of “high-tech jobs.” The traditional sources of American strength—manufacturing, the production of food and fuel, and the assembling of cars and trucks—were apparently passé. Instead, others less fortunate abroad were to do those more grubby tasks, while Americans, with their BlackBerrys and laptops, funded, organized, lectured and critiqued them.
Illegal aliens might cook our meals or change our children’s diapers to free us up for far more important tasks of litigation, finance and environmental review. The Chinese would make everything from our shoes to our phones. The Japanese would supply us with quality high-end goods like cars and cameras. The Africans, Arabs, Iranians, Russians and Venezuelans would drill oil in nasty, dirty places so we wouldn’t have to.
Even our food—which would be always in season—would increasingly be shipped in from Mexico and South America.
Refined Americans became more concerned over questions of gender, race and class justice in our universities and courtrooms, as if the chief problem were only dividing the American pie equitably, rather than expanding it.
(Excerpt) Read more at primetimepolitics.com ...
oooh, and don't forget powerpoint presentations, lots and lots and lots of powerpoint presentations with neat little graphics dropping in, fading out, graphs, bullets falling in place one at a time.
I wish there was a choice - 3 lashes with a leather strap or a half hour powerpoint presentation.
“Refined Americans became more concerned over questions of gender, race and class justice in our universities and courtrooms....”
No. We didn’t, not for a minute. This from the same guy who buys the Leftist propaganda that the “War on Terror” is an “unpopular war”.
I love VDH....most of the time. Perhaps he forgot the quote marks around “Refined” or meant “Condescending Americans with nothing more productive to do, and who view themselves as somehow more refined....”
Liberalism and environmentalism have exported the heavy manufacturing industries that were used by generations of hard-working but less educated people to get a toe-hold in the middle class, so their families could live in relative comfort. They sent their children to college, and those children turned around and invented earth day, gaia, and the idea that steel mills, oil refineries, coal mines, and appliance factories were a blight on the earth.
Today, the people who would have been able to find well paid jobs in those industries are selling crack to their neighbors’ kids and voting for Democrats, who give them a pittance and re-make the economy for the benefit of college-educated dilettantes like themselves.
I hate power point. I hate Microsoft for coming up with it.
Very interesting post. Thanks.
“Bottom line, I don’t really blame the companies for going overseas, I blame the government for running them off.”
Atlas Shrugged
-Ayn Rand
Frank, I don’t think you went off on a rant; I think you stated what the majority of us feel. Nice post.
I’m only 35 and I long for a place like Pleasantville.(Before the degenerates F’d it up.)
I long for Mayberry.
I see these PBS documentaries on America after WW II and it looks like an AWESOME PLACE. Then I contrast that with what I see in Houston and the local Wal-Mart and I can’t stand what I see.
To get away from it all, my wife and I have started watching 50’s movies. I like that America, today’s America, I can’t stand.
While everyone in this forum will jump on that bandwagon, statistics would have it that 1/2 of you drive a foreign made car. The American does not put is money where his mouth is on this issue, that simple.
Wal-Mart is number one, and where is most the stuff made?
I’m hoping for a post-Democrat or post-liberalism America.
“What we need to know from our two presidential candidates are specifics about how to jumpstart America.”
Well, now, we’ll be waiting a long time for that!!
The solution is for the government to get out of the way!
First thing they should do is cancel any plans for a carbon tax or cap & trade including ‘windfall’ profits tax. We have enough regulations, thank you.
Business will not take risks if they are going to be punished. It is in their best interest to use and create responsible and sustainable energy and products.
This could be the beginning!
It boggles the mind to consider how much MORE the great engine of the American economy could have soared and accomplished over the past 50 years, freed from the harness of Leftist governmental regulations (including most onerous of all-excessive taxation).
“I’m only 35 and I long for a place like Pleasantville.(Before the degenerates F’d it up.)
I long for Mayberry.”
Places very close to that still exist. I know where some are (and don’t ask, because I ain’t tellin’!). You have to find them for yourself. HINT: they cannot be found in some states; they CAN be found in others. You have to be willing to look - and willing to move.
“I see these PBS documentaries on America after WW II and it looks like an AWESOME PLACE. Then I contrast that with what I see in Houston and the local Wal-Mart and I can’t stand what I see.”
Dangerous, provocative and politically incorrect question:
Look at the _faces_ in those documentaries.
What is (was) their ethnic heritage?
- John
FWIW, Canada's national debt peaked at about 75% of GDP in the late 1990s (AFAIK, that's about 10 percentage points above the current U.S. national debt.) It's been declining ever since, and is now down to about 50% of GDP.
We got debt because of decades of overspending by Liberal governments. Most people believed the propaganda, based on a twisted version of Keynesianism, that said government deficits are good for the economy. Now, governments are now expected to bring in budget surpluses & make payments on the debt — every year.
The turn around was painful — but, we did it before we got the recent boost from rising commodity prices (which barely offset our losses in the industrial sector). The U.S. could turn things around quickly too — but, not if you elect a tax and spend President & Congress.
Excellent post.
Tonic for my psyche in that I feel the same way at age 50. I feared it was just because I’m getting old.
Don’t let the perverts, fags and hippies on the Left delude you. America REALLY was like that at one time. The wholesome, nuclear family of Leave it to Beaver was for the most part, a pretty accurate portrayal of that era.
We should weep for what we have lost.
That's certainly a part of it. But an even bigger part of the decline of jobs in the manufacturing sector is an increase in efficiency. It takes a lot less man-hours to produce a widget now than it did a generation ago. The US's manufacturing output continues to expand, even though the actual number of jobs in manufacturing keeps decreasing, in relative terms.
Bone-headed liberal policies certainly haven't helped the manufacturing sector, but automation and other increases in efficiency have made job-losses inevitable.
It's a bitter pill to swallow, but manufacturing jobs are going away worldwide. Some countries have temporarily been able to use cheap wages to attract jobs, but eventually those wages will rise and that labor will be automated.
Man, I totally envy those who got to live in “that America”.
Interesting how Hollywood tries to portray that America as a dull boring place.
Sorry, but I’ll take that America any day over today’s America which is infested with gangstas cruising in low riders, pimping out bit##es, selling dope, and hearing how freaking awesome some third world country is every day of the week. I’m fed up and I’m only 35, married with 4 Czech/Italian American girls. I teach them about 1950’s America and how awesome it is. They see the difference too, they like watching 1950’s America.
Like any time, there were plenty of downsides- 1950's America wasn't so great, in varying degrees, if you were a racial or ethnic minority, or a woman, Jewish or generally belonged to any group on the "outside."
Heck, even as a straight, married white guy, the 1950's don't hold much appeal for me.
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