General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSo, were the eighties and nineties great decades
compared to 2000-2022?
Even with Reagan I would have to say yes. I dont think my opinion on it is nostalgia.
Elessar Zappa
(14,063 posts)Despite some recent backsliding, minorities of all different stripes are better off now than they were a few decades ago. On the other hand, our democracy is in a much worse position than it was back then.
First Speaker
(4,858 posts)...like all times...
boston bean
(36,223 posts)beaglelover
(3,489 posts)If you weren't able to be successful in the 80s, you suck at life! LOL!
maxsolomon
(33,400 posts)The 90s didn't have Russian Fascism looming over us, so I guess that's good.
eShirl
(18,503 posts)this time period does have its advantages
Celerity
(43,520 posts)Ilsa
(61,698 posts)I think I liked the 70s better because I think intentions were better.
But I think society now is better than 40+ years ago.
Ace Rothstein
(3,184 posts)The late 90's were pretty great until school shootings started to be an annual occurrence.
oasis
(49,408 posts)brush
(53,871 posts)of the Soviet Union. The iron curtain was destroyed, the bomb threat was off our backs. Times were good. The big worry back then was Y2K and what was going to happen as computers were now in the workplace and home.
Then the republicans stole the '00 election and it went downhill from there as they ignored the warnings from the outgoing Dems that bin Laden and radical extremists were going to try again to bring down the World Trade Center...AGAIN.
Of course it happened and suddenly the republicans couldn't ignore it anymore so they had their excuse for starting a war and they took it.
We had some calm during the Obama years but before and after his admin was one debacle followed by an even more ridiculous one trying to go fascist.
oasis
(49,408 posts)today.
In the post Clinton years, Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, Fox News, and other corporate funded right wing propagandist, easily manipulated a dumbed down American public.
brush
(53,871 posts)climate change with initiatives that would've generated thousands of jobs. Good times would've kept rolling.
SheilaAnn
(9,710 posts)boston bean
(36,223 posts)Shermann
(7,440 posts)I can't prove the music was better back then, but I know it's true.
Sancho
(9,070 posts)..but I'm not complaining. I had a roof and a paycheck and stuff to do.
After the 1960s (my family actually built a bomb shelter in the back yard), I'd hate to go out in a nuclear war in my old age. At least Biden is sane.
dawg
(10,624 posts)we were kids. All the terrible things were still happening, we just didn't notice them.
In many ways, things have continued to improve throughout the years.
Well, at least up to the point where we lost Bowie. Everything pretty much went to hell after that.
AZProgressive
(29,322 posts)Dont remember the 80s but I hate the 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s.
brush
(53,871 posts)Soviet Union, were good. Everybody was working if you wanted a job. People were making money, then the election was stolen from Gore and it was all downhill after that.
Bush and PNAC looked for every excuse they could to start a war to avenge his daddy and they did. W was the worse president until the repugs outdid themselves and stole the election for trump in 2016.
The Obama years were a relatively calm respite sandwiched between dumb and extremely dumber periods.
Efilroft Sul
(3,581 posts)But the promise of the 21st century and the world being a better place, as sold to those of us alive in the 80s and 90s, has been completely betrayed by the worst hobgoblins of politics, media, and the stupidest and cruelest among us.
I have few good things to say about the last 21+ years, and so much in this world has taken major steps backward. Surely, I cannot be the only person who thinks this.
fescuerescue
(4,448 posts)I don't remember the 1960's, but it put us on the Moon
The 1970's were kinda lame, but not horrible.
80s,90, 00 and 10's were pretty good.
the 2020's? Well I hope they get better.
ForgedCrank
(1,782 posts)very young then so my opinion is biased for sure.
I cared nothing of news and politics, or the struggles of living at that age and was far too busy out exploring the world, wading in mud, swimming in ponds, and general kid stuff.
By that measure then yes, the 80's and 90's were far superior from my personal perspective. I had a blast when I was a kid.
Ron Obvious
(6,261 posts)But we thought they were pretty crap at the time. At least compared to previous decades, I seem to remember.
Of course I'm just a chronic malcontent anyway.
brush
(53,871 posts)Hugin
(33,207 posts)Via the information highway trying to rob me.
They had to physically go door to door.
SYFROYH
(34,183 posts)No in all ways, of course, but the Trump era was 2015-2020.
Javaman
(62,534 posts)some good, some bad, some truly horrible things.
I think that can be said about every decade.
Torchlight
(3,361 posts)I graduated in '84, so the eighties were my salad days. In my case, it's difficult if not impossible to think about those sweet, summer Texas days without my biases creeping in. Member's Only jackets, acid washed blue jeans, every song had an intro hook to it, and we'd hang out after school at whoever's house had MTV and no parents that afternoon.
Boone's Farm, Dungeon and Dragons, and a school parking lot filled at lunch with the smell of pot, and junked-out Camaro's, Charger's and Firebirds all trying to look more cherry than they were.
The nineties? The nineties were the first of what has since been, 'just another decade' to me up to this point.
lame54
(35,324 posts)Boomerproud
(7,964 posts)Life was supposed to get better and all hell has broken lloose.i feel terrible for the young people like my grand nephews and nieces.
Retrograde
(10,158 posts)IOW, pretty much like most other decades. On the plus side: Glasnost, Eastern Europe started to phase out Soviet influence and look westward, human rights continued their slow march forward in many parts of the world. On the minus side: Reagan, Thatcher, AIDS
JHB
(37,162 posts)In this century many more self-imagined visionaries saw opportunities to try to impose their pet new World Order (the neocons in the Middle East, conservative zealots seeing their big chance to cap off what they'd been building since the 70s, Putin trying to remake a Russia-centered empire, the rise of China, etc.).
IcyPeas
(21,904 posts)ignorance was bliss.